Surviving Grief
Part of the process of blessedwife.life (both the blog and my journey to it) has been in the trials we have endured in the last 25 years. Some of them relate to being a better wife, some do not. But all of them are relevant to why I now call myself a happy homemaker with a blessedwife.life. This has not always been an easy road and I want to invite you in to the hard places to offer encouragement and hope in the midst of the struggle.
Most of us can relate to hard seasons of life. One of those seasons for us was 1996. The year started out promising as we found out in January that were expecting our first child!
As the year started to progress, it started to unravel. We started getting hit with some losses. Mike lost his job in February, we had to move in with my parents (loss of independence), our car was broken into with a huge monetary loss, our health insurance was cancelled (due to an unethical company). Time went by between each of these things but it felt like we’d just catch our breath from the last loss and then we were hit again. What kept us going was the expectation of our new addition in September.
August 23, 1996 1:30 AM I woke aching all over. I was 8 1/2 months pregnant and it was summer so there was no getting comfortable this night. I tried every position, even getting up and dragging a chair close to our bed and hoping to get comfortable sitting with my feet elevated. Nope, not happening. I finally climb back into bed about 3:00 AM. I, again, try to get comfortable. As I am rolling over from one side to the other for the umpteenth time, I feel a sudden gush and suddenly my husband and I are in a waterbed! Realization finally hits that what I had thought was just late pregnancy discomfort was actually several hours of back labor.
As we are preparing to head to the hospital, I was overcome with emotion. Terror, anxiety and of course joy. This is it! We are finally going to meet our first child. I’m checked in and made as comfortable as possible, as contractions had started on the drive to the hospital.
We wait as long as possible to call our families. Although good news, we really didn’t want to wake them up at 4:00 am. Our families start to trickle in: my parents, mother-in-law, my brother and sister-in-law and our good friends. This was an event! First grandchild, first niece or nephew and the first of our friends to have a baby.
After 20 hours of labor, progression has not been made past 8 cm so the doctors decided that a C-section might be the best thing for me and the baby.
At 10:53 pm, our daughter Hannah Alexis was born. I didn’t know it at the time, but as they delivered our precious little girl, the operating room had gone silent. Mercifully for me, I had been dozing in and out after the exhaustion of labor and not much sleep in almost 2 days. Mike though, had to deal with Hannah being whisked off immediately because she wasn’t breathing. He went into the waiting room to tell our family to pray. I didn’t know any of this until much later.
All I remember of the hours that followed Hannah’s birth are waking in my room and Mike sitting next to my bed. He leaned over, clutching my hand, his beautiful blue eyes gazing into mine and telling me that Hannah had gone to be with Jesus. I remember wondering who Hannah was as I answered “OK”. Sleep claimed me once again until about 4:00 am when I woke, saw Mike sleeping in a chair by my bed and the realization hit that we’d had a little girl and, beyond all imagining, she was gone. I wept trying not to wake Mike. It was surreal. The next morning I woke, praying it had all been a nightmare. But reality closed in rather quickly as We had to deal with the fact that it was true and Hannah was in heaven.
The nurses wrapped our precious little girl in blankets and brought her to us. We held her, kissed her, told her we loved her and would miss her. The nurses brought her to us several times that day as we shared our precious daughter with those that loved us. Those moments are etched on my heart, the only moments, this side of heaven, that we got with her.
The next afternoon our family crowded around my hospital bed as we met with the funeral home. I remember weeping thinking we were supposed to be picking out what our baby would wear home from the hospital, not her casket. It was all wrong, not how it was supposed to be.
Due to my surgery and recovery the funeral wasn’t until a week after Hannah’s birth. So much heartache packed into that 1 short week. The sun was shining the morning of her funeral as we crowded around the gravesite. As Mike carried that impossibly small casket from the hearse to the grave, we wept. How were we supposed to do this? How were we going to leave our daughter here?
The grief that followed was a journey. Some days taking it minute by minute as we navigated something that no one can ever be prepared for. In the days, months and years that passed, it would have been so easy for Mike and I to lose each other. I’d like to say it was easy but grief can build a wall brick by brick unless you are intentional about not allowing the mortar to set on those bricks. This is hard work on a good day never mind when your heart is broken. 23 years later, I am so thankful that God used losing Hannah to bring us closer together.
Grief looks different for all of us. For some it’s loss of a person. But it can be loss of a dream, financial stability, material things, relationships, etc. It’s hard, it hurts. It’s a process, a journey.
One that can very easily come between you and your husband. Don’t let Satan take your marriage along with whatever else you have lost.
Help for walking through grief together:
Remember that men and women are created differently and therefore, will process grief differently. Don’t expect your husband to act, think, feel exactly like you do about the loss and that how each of you deal with it isn’t wrong
It is so easy to become angry with each other because you’re handling grief differently. Instead, extend grace. This is especially hard when you’re hurting yourself. For me, I learned to stop complaining that my husband didn’t want to talk about Hannah as often as I did. Instead, I found friends to listen when I needed to talk and made myself available when Mike wanted to talk. It’s not that he didn’t WANT to listen, he COULDN’T. It was too much for him. But it was a compulsion for me. Talking about her made her real and kept her alive.
If you are feeling distant and not able to connect, GET HELP. Make sure you find a counselor with a solid biblical mindset. There is no shame in seeking professional help. The loss of your marriage would be far worse than the unbiblical judgement of others.
If you don’t have one, find a church family to walk alongside you in your grief. There are people like me in most churches, someone who has gone through the loss you’ve experienced and can help you navigate the waters. You are not alone and thinking you are is a lie from Satan to isolate you and drive you away from God