What is Grief Like

“It gets better,” “Time heals,” “It gets easier”

We’ve all heard these words, typically in times of grief as some sort of consolation. But when you lose a child, specifically infant loss, it really doesn’t “get better.” How could it? The only thing that would make it better would be to have your baby back in your arms. But, it does get different. It changes. Time doesn’t heal your aching heart, nothing can heal the hole that is now where your child used to be. Time can only act as a balm. The wound will always be there, but it won’t be as fresh, as bloody, as raw forever.  It might not have the same, excruciating pain when something brushes against it, but you always feel it. And it never gets easier in the sense that the longing for your baby diminishes. It doesn’t and it won’t. It just gets easier to carry. And still easier may not be the right word for it. You become more accustomed to it, that your grief is now forevermore your companion. You learn how to balance that with “normal” life over time. You learn to carry it with you just so, and if one extra thing is placed on top of that grief, you might crumble. But, you also learn how to rearrange your load so that you can stand again.  

A very helpful analogy of grief after infant loss is that it is like an ocean. When you first are thrust into it, tossed overboard from your lifeboat with no warning, the waves crash down on you constantly. They are relentless and overwhelming, and you cannot keep your head above water. The undercurrent takes you every which way.  You gasp for every breath. It feels like it will never end, that you won’t survive. That’s early grief. Eventually, and there’s no timeline as to when, but eventually there’s a bit more space between each wave and you can catch your breath. They still are big and hit hard, but in between you tread water and regain your breath. But constantly treading water is exhausting. You can’t do anything else because all of your physical and mental energy is going into treading water, into surviving. At some point, the current takes you to a sand bar. And you can stand! You can rest and breathe and regain your energy. And even though the waves are in the distance, and the current will change, and you will get swept back out into open waters, you know that there is a place within the ocean to put your feet. And in the moments where the wave crashes down on you, you remember that eventually you will find footing again. You learn that when a wave does come, to let it and the current take over you, to ride it. That by doing so you may get back to the sand bar quicker than fighting and thrashing out in open water. And maybe, just maybe, one day the current washes you upon the shore. You look out on the ocean while your feet are in the water and feel peace, see the love that is there. You decide when you want to wade back in, to feel the ocean surround you once more.

But no matter where you are, you are always in the ocean.