This is loss.

This. Is. Loss.

For the most part, I don’t share this part of my days. I share that I’ve been organizing my cupboards or something funny the girls said. But I want to be completely honest because this is usually part of my everyday since we lost Harrison 4 weeks ago. This is part of the everyday for a lot of mothers of loss. For 1 in 4 of us, this is our reality.

At the advice of another photographer, Joy Prouty, I’ve been listening to an interview with an gentleman named Parker Palmer on the Podcast On Being with Krista Tippet and it’s spoken to me in SO many ways. I see my life reflected in so many of the words being spoken.

Parker states “In our culture, people are perceived as doing worthwhile things or who are perceived as being successful aren’t supposed to be depressed. And so when you find yourself depressed one of your first thoughts is, I can’t let anybody know about this.” When we first found out something might be wrong with Harrison— I didn’t leave my bed for days. Struggled to eat, to think, to literally move. I wanted help. I wanted to feel better. But I didn’t want anyone to know that I wasn’t feeling strong. And I only opened beyond that when I got to a point where I felt I had crumbled so deeply that I had no reason to hold myself ‘up’ anymore. I keep trying to rebuild into the old me, but I want to be honest. It’s so so so hard.

Depression through this lens of my life is physically painful. I’ve had anxiety for years that has challenged me in lots of ways, physically and mentally. But, the pain of this is so different than I ever expected and it is creeping. It attacks my heart when I’m in the midst of bliss. Like an anchor thrown into my chest when I’m not expecting it.  It wakes me in physical pain in the middle of the night. I’ve cried so much I feel like it must be physically impossible for me to cry any more.

“The closer you get to light the closer you also get to darkness“

This fact is something I struggle with a lot. I know in my right mind it isn’t true but I feel wrong feeling joy. The moments I am enjoying my son will never enjoy. I know I shouldn’t dwell on that. Like they say, all he ever knew was love. And that’s true. My love. The love of my husband and my girls. Gods love. But it still hurts. Because I’m human, and God gave me the ability to have free will and to love and with both of those things comes the chance of a broken hearts and lots of pain. I know that it is going to be like this and I will learn to handle it better but right now I need to come to terms with my truth and that is that fact that now, because of this experience and the pain that I’m in right now— the darkness is always going to be hiding there.

I struggle internally because he isn’t here anymore and I feel like the entire world is expecting me to ‘get over it’, to move on, to stop crying. But I feel like the second I start to ‘mend’ or talk about him less— that people will forget about him and that hurts. He was here. Here was alive. He had a heartbeat and waved to us in our ultrasound. He was my son. He IS my son. I don’t want to ‘get over it’.

My strongest desire is something that will never happen. That because of his chromosomal makeup never could have happened. My sons condition was 100% fatal. But the strong desire to have my son alive is something I can’t shake. I just wish I could hold him, kiss his little hands and run my fingers along his sweet tiny toes. I just want him to be okay. To be in my belly kicking. To be safe. September 15th is going to come and go and my son will be here. But in an urn. No kicking and screaming in my arms. That thought makes my entire body ache. It’s not fair.

None of this is fair <3