6 Months and Counting

I can't believe it's been 6 months since we lost Hannah. Let me rephrase that. I can't believe it's only been 6 months since we lost Hannah. I feel like her loss is a weight that I've always carried. I can't remember what it was like to not feel her missing every day. Missing her has become such a profound part of our every day that I can't even remember what it was like not to feel that. Not to have that twinge of guilt with every laugh and just to enjoy a relaxed or happy moment freely. Her loss still colors our every movement. Will it always be that way? I don't know. It's certainly gotten easier to carry her loss. It's stopped being extra baggage and just become a part of who I am now. I don't get up every morning and put on my grief like I used to. I used to wake and lay there peacefully for a moment before the memory of her hit me and shredded that peace. Now I just wake up with her loss. It's nothing new. Its a part of who I am, much like my arm or my face or my sarcastic sense of humor. I can't take it off, I can't put it down. It's just there, a part of me.

Honestly, I am glad it's there. It's all I have left and I don't want to lose it. Here's the thing that they don't tell you when your baby dies. There is nothing to sooth you. I can't look back on happy memories or remember the good times, because weren't allowed to experience them. When a grandparent, parent, sibling or friend dies the grief slowly gives way to happy memories. While you will never, ever stop loving them and missing them terribly, eventually you reach a place where you can relieve a funny story or happy memory and smile. We didn't get that chance with Hannah. I can't walk into her room and pick up the blanket she was swaddled in at the hospital and remember the first time I looked into her eyes because that never happened. Instead I pick up that blanket and remember saying goodbye to my sweet girl.

I don't mean to infer that infant loss is worse than other loss. That's simply not true. No loss is easy and it's certainly not a competition. What I mean to say is that it's different than other types of loss. The journey through grief and healing is different. And when grief is all you have of someone it's hard, if not impossible to really let it go.

So I carry this weight with me always. And I'm ok with that. Missing Hannah is the only relationship I was given with her. Instead of cursing fate (which I've done) or God (which I've also done) I carry her loss with me. For better or for worse it's who I am now and I'm slowing coming to terms with that because it means that I carry Hannah with me and that is something that I cherish.