Grieving the Unknown

Yesterday was a difficult day. I woke exhausted, sad and aimless. It was clear I shouldn't push myself to follow the predetermined plan for the day, but rest and give whatever was disturbing me time to surface. Sometime in the afternoon I realized tomorrow would have been my 22-year wedding anniversary - a huge wave of grief swept over me. Why grief? I love my children and have adapted to and accepted the high probability that I will never have a partner. Then, another wave, and this one brought with it my unborn baby - the miscarriage all those years ago and the endless, never-to-be-answered questions... was it a boy or a girl, what would life have looked like now, had my baby lived? The loneliness of Craig's practicality and not understanding my grief 18 years ago.

I needed to revisit the pain and questions from that loss again and just let the emotions sweep over me, one after another.

I wanted to share what I was going through, but everyone I thought of who would understand also has suffered from a miscarriage and I definitely did not want to derail a friend's day or add stress to already-limited resources. So, I wrote instead.

I think any woman who has lost a pregnancy will forever feel the pain of "if onlys"and creating alternate world projections that dissolve more rapidly than they can be constructed. Logic jumps to point out the futility, but futility is not synonymous with unnecessary. I am going to let tomorrow lead me where it may. Grieve what might have been and embrace what is.