My good friend, Denial

It is the waking up that can be the most challenging.  That first thought of the morning.  Oh yes, she is gone.  Throughout the day, I float around in a cloud of unreality.  It is helpful to not have to take it all in at once.   Denial can be a friend.  But that first jolt of wakefulness is when it really hits hard.

Before when I would hear of a parent losing a child, I would wonder how in the world they did that.  Seriously.  I had no idea.  Now that I am on this side of that equation (yes, I know I sound like a veteran after a week and a half), it is so much more colorful and complex than I ever imagined.  I imagined when we reached this point in our journey, I would be so consumed by grief that I would be unable to drag myself from bed.  I admit there are times when I feel as if I am walking through knee deep mud.  And times that I sleep in or nap accidentally.  Everything seems some how more difficult at those times.  I feel as if the bubbles I usually feel inside me have burst.  But this space is not all black and gray as I imagined it would be.  There are moments filled with blackness, but they do not consume me as I thought they might.  There are also moments filled with all the colors as I feel flooded with appreciation and life.    Everything seems deeper and richer somehow.  I imagined I would feel empty, alone, abandoned, regretful.  I do at times.  I oscillate between being excited to make plans to wanting to do nothing at all.  I may seem naive, supposing that I have gained such insights not even 2 weeks after Ellie's passing.  I may look back on this blog and scoff at myself for imaging things to be so neat and tidy and pretty once I am standing on another precipice of grief looking down into the abyss.  I suppose that is what this blog is all about, sharing this journey, hoping that my words somehow express what someone else is experiencing in such a say that the reader says, "YES that is IT!"