My Grandfather died when I was 9. A year later, my grandmother followed. Those were my first experiences with loss. It felt like a huge thing at the time. Then, in my teen years, I lost two friends and my half brother all on separate occasions. It made a hard and confusing time in my life even harder and more confusing.
However, nothing compares to the pain of losing my father. He was the planet around which my life orbited. After I lost him, I fell apart. I told my husband that if our life together was a plant, it would die because I couldn't water it at that time. So, my husband started bringing me cacti. That's the type of man my husband is.
After four months, he became so concerned about me that he asked me to go talk to someone and I did. A third therapist, another woman, supposedly specializing in grief counseling. First thing she did was ask me to write my father a letter talking to him about any unresolved issues. Well, that was fine and good but when my father died, it was of cancer and not a heart attack like we'd all prepared ourselves for. So, my dad actually had nine months before he passed and we'd said everything we needed to. Still, I wrote a letter saying good-bye. I don't know how helpful it was but it didn't hurt.
In the next sessions, my husband joined me for support. The therapist started telling us we needed to get passed the pain. I thought it was too soon to tell me to get over it. I was no where near ready. In fact, it's almost been 2 years and I still don't know if I'm ready. The point being that I didn't think she should tell me when I'm ready. What I wanted from her was someone to listen. I wanted my first therapist, "the wall". Turns out he did have a function.
While my husband and I were seeing my third therapist, we got pregnant. It was our first, after years of trying and we were ecstatic. I thought this was surely God's gift to us to help us move passed the grief. I was wrong. We lost our baby a of couple months in. I can't even describe the anger that I felt.
Throughout my father's whole ordeal, I'd managed to keep my faith. When I lost my baby though, I lost my faith and I cursed God. It's not something I'm proud of. I just felt so lost. I couldn't wrap my brain around the dreaded "why?" question.
Fortunately, we got pregnant again 3 months later and we now have a healthy baby boy. My faith is restored. I know that I am blessed.
Labels: Grief, My history
