How Do You Live Life After Loss?

Day 3 of Capture Your Grief: After Loss

Today’s prompt was to share a self-portrait after loss. Finding (or taking) pictures of myself is a challenge in itself. I am normally the face behind the viewfinder. I am also not coordinated enough to take cell-phone pictures of myself. The picture I’m sharing was taken by my husband on November 15th. It was ten days after Miranda’s memorial service. The reality of her death had barely sunk in. It was just the beginning of trying to figure out how to embrace life after loss of our youngest daughter. We were also trying to reclaim our household, which had sat in a state of upheaval while we commuted daily to sit by Miranda’s bedside.

I’m smiling, but my eyes are tired. The hair around the frame of my face has gone quite a bit grayer than it was. My heart is broken, but I still have joy.

Through loss we have gained a better understanding that joy does not come from our circumstances. It truly is a gift from God.

I remember the day I changed my profile picture on Facebook to a photo that was taken during our family photo shoot at the end of November. I am smiling in the picture and it is an honest smile, probably taken in the midst of a laugh. I got a lot of comments from people saying it was good to see me smile, to see me happy, to see joy again.

That struck me as odd.

I honestly don’t think that all those things have to be exclusive of one another. I smiled and laughed through the month that Miranda was at JHH. We embraced the unlikely friendships with the staff that surrounded us. I will never forget sitting around laughing on the night before Miranda’s last day, joking with one of the staff members about the donuts we had brought for the night shift. He didn’t know what the next day meant for us. I smiled a lot that night even knowing what ‘tomorrow’ meant. When I saw him the next day he apologized for his insensitivity the night before. I told him how unnecessary that was and how the laughter he brought left me with more good memories of otherwise dark days. In the past year I have treasured the connections made with the doctors, nurses, and technicians that we met at Hopkins.

In the months after Miranda had died many people, often well-meaning, would ask us if things were getting back to normal. Sometimes they would correct themselves and ask if we’d found our new normal…

After a baby’s death ‘normal’ or ‘new normal’ do not exist.

There is nothing normal about burying a newborn. There is no such thing as finding a new normal either. The order of life is upset when you plan your child’s funeral. That isn’t the way things are supposed to happen, and everything that happens after that is colored by the new lens you’re looking through.

Life for us has continued, but it has been redefined.

Death was a catalyst for change within us all. Some of those changes are good and some are not so good.

My hunger for Heaven is greater now than it ever was before Miranda died. I know just how little I can handle without God. I see that each day here is a gift and that tomorrow is not a promise. Every moment that a child is alive is a precious gift, even before it ever leaves the womb. Each child is an individual and adds to the dynamic of the family. None could replace another.

Along with those things that seem to be gracious gifts that have come from loss I also notice things about myself that are not pleasing.

My tolerance for little things seems to be nonexistent. I am more critical of my relationships. I sometimes lack motivation for ‘today’ because I long for Eternity. There is an innocence that is gone. I am not as trusting as I used to be. Self-preservation affects many of my choices.

Through is all, life is good, and God is always good.

I don’t feel punished, but I do feel tested. As I see it, testing is just part of the refining of faith.

I’m not letting go, because He has given me another day to live!

When the refining fire burns hot are you going to run away from it? Or will you choose to walk through it to the other side?