It doesn't come in "waves". It doesn't ebb and flow like the tide, or gently crash against you and then pull away. It drowns you. It beats you senseless and raw against the reef, and when the storm seems like its about to end, it recycles.
It doesn't leave. It's always there, gnawing at you like a persistent flesh-eating virus. And it takes its sweet time, oh yes. It lets you get that glimmer of hope, that faint ray of light in the darkness before snuffing it out. Before dragging you back to that isolated darkness, that incomprehensible sorrow and excruciating pain. It makes you lose her all over again. Just when you think you have a wisp of a grasp on your pain, your torment, it pulls the precarious ladder out from under your feet, and you crash down onto the jagged glass of horrible realization. It blinds you, cuts you to shreds, and leaves you bleeding and clawing your way towards the surface again.
You don't have "stages" of grief. They come all at once. When your fists clench in rage so the nails slice your palms, but your legs are heavy and you can't find the energy to sit up. Your tears flow hot down your numb face, your eyes red and sore but lifeless and glassy. Your chest is hollow, your womb barren - how can you be filled with so many complex emotions and still feel... empty? How can your future, which held so much promise, be so hidden now, so bleak and dim.
I live at two speeds now, either forcibly numb or hysterically devastated. Most of the day is spent forcibly numb, where I don't allow myself to feel anything. I process everything rather mechanically - do this, now do this, next that - in between moments where I sit, sometimes for hours, debating my next decision (which could be as "simple" as what to wear or eat) and mourning my sweet girl. The times where I allow myself to grieve scare me, because I'm worried they won't stop. I cry for hours. I look at her pictures, her keepsakes, her things - they make me feel better than the horrible replay of the nightmare that is on full blast in my head.
Last night I just sobbed and bawled for hours. I never understood why people at funerals wailed, cried out, vocally mourned. I wish I still didn't. When there are no more words to express a loss so deep it cuts your core and transcends the grave, your soul cries. That is the sound of my heart, my soul crying out, expressing what words and tears cannot and never will. Have you ever heard a mother crying out for her child? It is often silent, but overpowers every sound in existence.
I never heard her cry. I don't even know what color her eyes were. I will never have a Christmas with her. I will never get to brush her hair, or tie her shoes, or even get up for those exhausting 3 am feedings and changings I was dreading. Her room sits untouched. Her diapers, neatly arranged in a stack next to the powder and lavender lotion, unused. Her stroller set is brand new, her crib was her brothers, and her closet full of clothes is both donated and gifted. She will never get to use the baby carriage for her own sweet baby doll, just as I will never proudly push her down the street in hers. She will never see the pictures of her family, framed and one of the last additions to her room. She will never jam the Snow White figure I bought as a girl at Disney into her mouth and gnaw on it to soothe her gums, which will never bear teeth to put under her pillow. There are no first steps, first words, first days of school. There are no hugs, no tears, no smiles. There is nothing left of her but a box, her footprints, her blanket and some photos.
She is gone - she was real, but never was.
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