Sharing is healing
I've felt inspired over the last few weeks to start writing on my blog more, to let a few things out via this outlet I've made myself, but getting started on it has been harder than I thought. I go back and read old things I've posted and experienced and then shared on the internet, and it opens up some wounds or reminds me that this is all about being vulnerable. But I know that my mind — and especially my heart — are ready for the healing of writing.
Right now is an especially exciting time of my life: I'm pregnant. Not only that, but I am due with my sweet baby girl a week from tomorrow. I can't begin to explain the pure joy, excitement, anticipation, anxiety, terror and impatience I feel just waiting for the moment she gets to make her entrance into this world. M and I can hardly wait to see her perfect face and hold her tiny, perfect body. Not everything has been perfect during the pregnancy, but it's been amazing to know what my body can do; creating life is no joke, and is TRULY a massive miracle only possible through Heavenly Father's power and grace. The fact that He allows us to nurture and grow His spirit children ourselves, and then birth and rear them on earth blows me away. I'm not sure I feel ready for the task quite yet, but too late now, right?
Through all of the waiting, and adjusting as we moved across the country with me 8 months pregnant, I've had a lot of time to ponder and evaluate and I think that's why my brain and heart have kept telling me to write more down lately: they can't hold much more in. This last year has been wild and intense and emotional and several things happened for me that I (in a way) had prepared myself to some day happen, but how do we really prepare ourselves for true loss and tragedy? Answer: we can't.
Last October, a year from this very week, M and I found out we were pregnant and were ECSTATIC. We hadn't been trying long and couldn't believe the fortune we had of starting on the journey to bring a little one into the Ditto family. November 7th, about 2 weeks from telling our families our news, my older half-brother died from heart (amongst other) complications. He had had several heart surgeries throughout life and wasn't expected to live to a terribly ripe old age, but 35 is too young for anyone to die. We didn't get a chance to say good-bye, he simply stopped breathing, was taken to the hospital and couldn't be revived. He was taken off life support shortly after my dad found out what had happened (he is my dad's son). My mother called my grandma because I hadn't answered my phone and was upstairs chatting with her (we lived in her basement in the year between my graduation and moving for M's graduate school). My grandma looked at me and handed me the phone with a solemn face. I was standing on the stairs heading down to start working that day, as my mother explained through tears that Justin had died. I feel to the ground and sobbed. My parents and one of my brothers and I drove to see his family (wife and 4 of his 5 children) that day. I don't think I wrapped my head around my brother being gone until his funeral later that week. Memorials for people we love and lose are important. I think the hardest part was seeing my dad learning at such a young age, it seems, how it felt to lose a child. I still think a lot about my brother, even though we didn't see each other or speak much. The last time we had seen each other in person was at my wedding the year before. He had been so excited to come and I wish I could have spent more time talking to and being with him then. But I have the beautiful pieces of himself he left behind: his children, and I try to think of them and talk to them as much as possible.
On the night of December 2nd, M and I drove up to his parent's house to have dinner and play games with them. I had been having some minor cramps and just assumed it was my body dealing with the large amount of iron I had to take due to my anemia, until I noticed that I was spotting when I went to the bathroom. We called the hospital and our OBGYN happened to be the one on call that night and talked us through what ended up being a miscarriage. It was a completely, indescribably terrible night that went into a terrible morning and a procedure to help me begin the healing process.
My uncle died from suicide on February 1st, after Matt moved jobs and I was still struggling to find anything besides my part-time, freelance gig. We found out I was pregnant again 3 days later, and told my family after we had held a service for Scott. My grandmother passed away from complications with her heart (and many other parts of her body) physically and emotionally. She had lost her baby and couldn't imagine living without him anymore, and her body gave up at the same time.
It felt like there wasn't more that could possibly happen to us all. Luckily, blessedly, nothing more devastating took place. We've been tragedy free for nearly 8 months. But this chunk of my life has left wounds that will leave scars that will never go away. It doesn't mean that I haven't been able to slowly, and in my own way, move through and around and away from the desperate despair, but nothing could entirely take away what those 4 months did to me and my family. We are doing so much better now, and welcoming a new life into our way is one way in which our healing has been jumpstarted and pushed in the right direction.
Sharing things like this is not easy or natural for me to do, and there are still more people in my life than not who don't know this whole story. But I know that sharing so that others who can relate feel less alone — and so I feel less alone — is a significant way to overcome things like this. I know as long as I keep sharing the beautiful, difficult and unfair parts of my life experience, I can not only learn from them in hindsight, but can learn with others about how tragedy and loss shape us.
I'm still healing, but I'm glad that I am really progressing in healing as I bring new life into the world, a daughter I can teach about the ups and downs of life's journey.
Right now is an especially exciting time of my life: I'm pregnant. Not only that, but I am due with my sweet baby girl a week from tomorrow. I can't begin to explain the pure joy, excitement, anticipation, anxiety, terror and impatience I feel just waiting for the moment she gets to make her entrance into this world. M and I can hardly wait to see her perfect face and hold her tiny, perfect body. Not everything has been perfect during the pregnancy, but it's been amazing to know what my body can do; creating life is no joke, and is TRULY a massive miracle only possible through Heavenly Father's power and grace. The fact that He allows us to nurture and grow His spirit children ourselves, and then birth and rear them on earth blows me away. I'm not sure I feel ready for the task quite yet, but too late now, right?
Through all of the waiting, and adjusting as we moved across the country with me 8 months pregnant, I've had a lot of time to ponder and evaluate and I think that's why my brain and heart have kept telling me to write more down lately: they can't hold much more in. This last year has been wild and intense and emotional and several things happened for me that I (in a way) had prepared myself to some day happen, but how do we really prepare ourselves for true loss and tragedy? Answer: we can't.
Last October, a year from this very week, M and I found out we were pregnant and were ECSTATIC. We hadn't been trying long and couldn't believe the fortune we had of starting on the journey to bring a little one into the Ditto family. November 7th, about 2 weeks from telling our families our news, my older half-brother died from heart (amongst other) complications. He had had several heart surgeries throughout life and wasn't expected to live to a terribly ripe old age, but 35 is too young for anyone to die. We didn't get a chance to say good-bye, he simply stopped breathing, was taken to the hospital and couldn't be revived. He was taken off life support shortly after my dad found out what had happened (he is my dad's son). My mother called my grandma because I hadn't answered my phone and was upstairs chatting with her (we lived in her basement in the year between my graduation and moving for M's graduate school). My grandma looked at me and handed me the phone with a solemn face. I was standing on the stairs heading down to start working that day, as my mother explained through tears that Justin had died. I feel to the ground and sobbed. My parents and one of my brothers and I drove to see his family (wife and 4 of his 5 children) that day. I don't think I wrapped my head around my brother being gone until his funeral later that week. Memorials for people we love and lose are important. I think the hardest part was seeing my dad learning at such a young age, it seems, how it felt to lose a child. I still think a lot about my brother, even though we didn't see each other or speak much. The last time we had seen each other in person was at my wedding the year before. He had been so excited to come and I wish I could have spent more time talking to and being with him then. But I have the beautiful pieces of himself he left behind: his children, and I try to think of them and talk to them as much as possible.
On the night of December 2nd, M and I drove up to his parent's house to have dinner and play games with them. I had been having some minor cramps and just assumed it was my body dealing with the large amount of iron I had to take due to my anemia, until I noticed that I was spotting when I went to the bathroom. We called the hospital and our OBGYN happened to be the one on call that night and talked us through what ended up being a miscarriage. It was a completely, indescribably terrible night that went into a terrible morning and a procedure to help me begin the healing process.
My uncle died from suicide on February 1st, after Matt moved jobs and I was still struggling to find anything besides my part-time, freelance gig. We found out I was pregnant again 3 days later, and told my family after we had held a service for Scott. My grandmother passed away from complications with her heart (and many other parts of her body) physically and emotionally. She had lost her baby and couldn't imagine living without him anymore, and her body gave up at the same time.
It felt like there wasn't more that could possibly happen to us all. Luckily, blessedly, nothing more devastating took place. We've been tragedy free for nearly 8 months. But this chunk of my life has left wounds that will leave scars that will never go away. It doesn't mean that I haven't been able to slowly, and in my own way, move through and around and away from the desperate despair, but nothing could entirely take away what those 4 months did to me and my family. We are doing so much better now, and welcoming a new life into our way is one way in which our healing has been jumpstarted and pushed in the right direction.
Sharing things like this is not easy or natural for me to do, and there are still more people in my life than not who don't know this whole story. But I know that sharing so that others who can relate feel less alone — and so I feel less alone — is a significant way to overcome things like this. I know as long as I keep sharing the beautiful, difficult and unfair parts of my life experience, I can not only learn from them in hindsight, but can learn with others about how tragedy and loss shape us.
I'm still healing, but I'm glad that I am really progressing in healing as I bring new life into the world, a daughter I can teach about the ups and downs of life's journey.
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