This Life of Grief and Motherhood

It happened again just the other day. An innocent question we don't know how to answer that ends with us saying something we wish we hadn't, or embarrassed by the answer we'd have to give to be honest.It's really hard to put to words the reality of life right now.So many times I'm sitting in a room full of people and I feel like there's a sphere of air engulfing me with seemingly deafening whispers of unasked questions or unsaid statements or strong emotions or simply the existence of my grief.And I don't know what's worse: sitting in a room full of strangers who don't know we had a son, or sitting in a room full of acquaintances who do know we had a son and who look on us with pity.In both situations it's too quiet and lonely.I've found that in the quiet, I see more of who I am and what we're going through.  Although at times distorted, the view of my heart and how I'm changing and what it's really like is at the forefront of my mind at any given moment.  Because this grief is hard work and it's shaping and transforming me.Some changes I think are temporary.  My capacity is so low right now; my emotions are too high.  I feel suffocated in large groups and quickly exhausted by conversation.  I don't know how to discuss normal things in conversations or how to make new friends; I get anxious over basic stressors that normally would never phase me.  I feel. so. awkward.  I want time to pass more quickly and yet I just want life to slow down.  The numbness of my grief has worn off and I feel it more deeply and rawly and honestly than I did when in the trenches of the initial survival shock.But then I look at myself in the mirror and I think that I don't recognize myself.  In many ways, I'm changed.  Whether that's motherhood or grief or maybe both, my identity at my core is shifting and transforming; I'm becoming more of me than I'd like to admit.  Because admitting I'm changing involves admitting what happened and admitting what happened is really hard work.I see the depth at which my heart anchors, solidifying and binding me more deeply to the God who made me, who saved me, who oversees it all.  I see a stronger endurance in the steadfastness of my soul in the midst of the heartache and I cannot help but have my eyes opened to the magnitude of God's grace.  I've given you grace for today, He says to me, and I haven't given you tomorrow's yet.  But it'll be there because He is faithful and I'm not alone.I see the way my body has changed because I carried our son for nine months and I brought him into this world in the most physically altering way possible. I resent the changes because there's "nothing to show for it" and no reward of a baby in my arms.  But I realize that in time there is wisdom and there is beauty and there is a true realization of the fact that I can be reminded that he's changed me.  Jacob has changed me and my heart and soul and body have undergone the transformation that is the beginning of motherhood and I have great hope that it's not the end.I see the way that I see others and how it's so different than what it once was.  Deeper, realer, more honest.  My already empathetic heart at times feels that I didn't need to experience pain myself to understand others' - for that truly is the "curse" so to speak of empathy - but then again, how else would I know the value of a hug or a prayer or a handwritten card or a meal? How else would I have eyes to see those in pain during holidays or those who feel overlooked and invalid in their hurt because of the ignorant words others have spoken to them? How else would I know how to truly and graciously act around others who are in pain, giving both an outlet to escape it for a moment and yet offering a strong arm as we lean in together to ask and answer the hard questions... and to do it honestly?There are so many things I'm feeling and learning and experiencing and yet so few words to make sense of it all.  And some days the only thing that gets me through the grief is a brief nap and a hot shower.But if I must go through life in such a way that forces me to endure these things I'd never ask for, I want to face it with the bravery and vulnerability that I've seen in myself recently.  Bravery and vulnerability that has only been unearthed in my moments of being a mother, and not just any mother, but a grieving mother.  A bereaved mother.My life changed in that hospital room as I was so presently aware of my pain and my hope and I realized that the only way out is through.  I looked pain in the face and walked towards it in the most visceral and instinctive way as I labored and birthed my son.  And while the pain certainly was present in the night, the joy came in the morning.  He was here, he was breathing, he was in my arms.  He deeply changed me.And although I don't have a three month old in my arms depriving me of sleep, I have my heart forever bonded to him.  My grief is my baby now, my three month old, and it, too, has left a lasting impression.Ask any new mom how she's doing and I guarantee you there's no way she can fully put words to the work that it takes and the difficulty that there is and the love that she feels for her son.  I'm just the same.  Except my story is a little different than the average and that is a good thing.I'm bolder.  I'm exposed.  I'm stronger than I ever thought I could be.  I endured the pain and I continue to endure it.  I'll freeze in a conversation that I'm not expecting to be in and my voice will be shaky as I stumble through responding to ignorance with grace and my stomach will be in knots as I realize that no one spoke his name today besides me.This grief is hard work and there's often no words that satisfy what it's really like.  But I must embrace it.  This is my life.  I have the honor of carrying my son in my heart.  My God has found favor with me.  My baby and my grief are changing me.  Oh praise Him, for this, this is well with my soul.