“It is a conscious daily choice to experience dakyro, the sadness that allows one to grieve with the expectation of redemption” Angie Smith

I’m trying to find a balance of being able to be around my friends and family but also feeling like I am properly grieving. All my friends are getting together tonight and I miss them so much. I want to see them but I also still feel like it’s so hard to talk about Noelle and so hard not to talk about her. It gives me anxiety knowing I could have a night where I don’t properly grieve her, a night where I feel “normal”. I hate that. I don’t ever want that to be a word that’s associated with me because, as I’ve said so many times now, I will never be normal again.

But I don’t want to push people away either, especially my friends that have been there for me so steadily through my loss.

Then there are people who haven’t been there for me too and people I truly do need to distance myself from. I need to surround myself with people who lift me up and put myself in situations that I can be my abnormal self in.

Part of my anxiety is knowing that something unexpected could cause me to breakdown or that people around me are feeling sorry for me and tip-toeing around what they want to say. But more than that is wanting people to respect the loss of our daughter. At the end of the day I know life goes on, I know people will continue to have babies and be happy and that not everyone is going to be thinking about how their happiness affects us, but please just respect the fact that we lost our daughter, only 3 months ago…. Just respect the fact that we are still grieving, just acknowledge it. A simple statement of “I’ve been thinking about you” or “I know that this is hard for you… I’m here if you need to talk” is all it takes to feel that our daughter and our loss is being respected.

I still feel as though I am trapped in time. I can’t believe it has been 3, going on 4 months since loosing our baby girl. Time is going fast. And I am still in this cloudy place where the only thing that brightens the road before me is thinking about Noelle and the memories I have with her and holding on to the hope that I will be with her again. When I think back to the first few weeks after loosing her I recognize the “progress” I have made in grieving. I am not in my pajamas all day. I am applying for Nurse Practitioner jobs and I am not drinking wine every night of the week. I recognize that I am now a healthy griever. But that doesn’t mean I am “good”. It’s hard to be around people who think that now that you are out of the house and appear OK that everything is OK. I want to just scream “It will never be OK, our daughter is gone!!!” because that is how I feel. Yes I can live, yes I will have happy moments, but I will forever have a missing piece of my heart until I am with Noelle again.

For now, I am going to ease into being with other people and only be with those that respect that a piece of my heart is missing. I need to respect that a piece of my heart is missing and I need to slowly strengthen the other chambers. And even when it pumps the blood sufficiently enough to sustain me, it will never be whole again.

I miss Noelle. I miss my baby.