The Companion of Grief: The Unwanted Guest

I lost a baby, my only son, when I was 15 weeks pregnant. Lots of people lose babies; it's a common occurrence.What I wasn't prepared for was the feeling that I had just joined a club- a  club that no-one wants to be a member of. It is something that isn’t understandable unless you are experiencing it, and it can be very lonely. Navigating the sea of grief is a learning process. Because of my experience with my son, I have learned a few things. 

1. My child was meant to make a difference in my life. It happened, and it is part of who I am. 

2. The affect my baby had on me and the world did not end when he died. I see people differently than I did before, I see the world differently, I see life differently. This grief has made me a much more compassionate person. I am far more hesitant to assume that I know what I would do in any given situation, because I have truly learned that you really don’t know until you are faced with it yourself. 

3.  God can handle my emotions. All of them. The good, the bad, and the ugly-He is big enough to take what I give to Him. I have to remember to keep giving it to Him. 

4.    4.  People experience grief and loss in very different ways. One of the first things I realized was that my husband and I were not experiencing this the same way, and fortunately, I quickly grasped that it was okay. I had a deep impression that I should not expect him to process this the same way that I did. How could he? This happened to both of us, but obviously in very different ways. He wasn’t right, and I wasn’t wrong. I had to learn to not put too many expectations on myself or my loved ones. Nobody knows how to do this in advance, and there’s no instruction book.

5.   5.   Often, people don't know what to say. Sometimes, they won’t say anything, sometimes they will say the wrong thing, and sometimes they will say too much.  I chose to focus on the fact that they weren’t purposefully trying to hurt me, and I have probably said the wrong thing to people before, too.

6.    6. The main reason people say the wrong thing is that they want to “fix” you by offering you comfort. The single most important thing I have learned for my own personal development is that I don’t need to fix people when they are sad. I need to be sad with them. 

7. 7.     I am a big believer in the 5 stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. But that’s me. Everyone has an opinion. I received comfort from taking what was valuable from each person I interacted with and leaving the rest behind.