Grieving

In the first month of Lily’s life I spent most of my days holding and rocking her, imagining what she would be like when she grew up, what color her eyes were going to turn, wondering what kind of things would interest her. I had already imagined her being best friends with Ella, sharing a room and sharing their secrets. I had pictured her as an adult, pictured a wedding. I had pictured her whole life ahead of her.

So when we got Lily’s diagnosis I had to grieve the loss of the little girl I thought I had. I grieved for all of things that may not be, I grieved for Lily, and I grieved for our family.

During this painful time someone gave me a book about the five stages of grief, and I couldn’t believe how accurate it seemed. The five stages of grief include: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. I went through all of these stages, and while I didn’t go through them in this order, I experienced ALL of them. The funny thing about grief is you can move from one stage into another, and then back. There is no one way to grieve, but at the end of the day, if you do go through the grieving process, most likely you will experience these five stages.

I would say for the most part I am at acceptance, but some days I still grieve, some days I still feel sad for all of the things I won’t get to see Lily do in this life, but the good days are beginning to outweigh the bad ones.

I have felt very inspired to share my experience with grief, and although I was hesitant to do so, I think that for me it is cathartic to write down these feeling, and to record them as well. The next few posts will focus on each stage of grief and what that looked like for me.