I was touched and uplifted by you dear people leaving thoughtful messages.
Of course - I'm both completely alone, and with a crowd of many in that experience. As we all are - as some of you pointed out.
I guess what makes a difference for me is having someone know. I've given up expecting people in my life to understand this experience. I have found that expectation to be unhelpful as it leads to an intense anger as they inevitably fail at doing that. It's not fair to expect people with living kids to imagine their babies dying in their arms. To imagine their family not existing...... Because they do exist, and to ask them to imagine otherwise is, at some level, a betrayal of what is. And yet, it is the experience many of us live each day, and, 3 years later, it can still knock the breath out of me. So, I have given up telling people (who I can see) what is happening for me, I've shared some of the practical details, but where I am at emotionally, what I'm feeling.......... by and large I keep it to myself (apart from my husband, and even sometimes from him).
It's kind of sad but kind of OK. I am learning to be my own support. To hold myself - so to speak - to check in on my inside people and have compassion on them. To give them protection, time and space.
Sometimes though, it's not enough. I just need someone to see.......
So thanks for baring witness.
Your capacity to show love to me, a stranger, is the kind of miracle that helps me believe in spite of everything.
humbly
B
