I get it. A new season (or chapter) now sucks. It used to be a time of renewal, excitement, anticipation... A time that you looked forward to. A new beginning. Maybe it was a new job, a new relationship, a new home, a new opportunity, a new year, a new holiday season...these were all things that I would have been excited about 'before'. It was kind of like starting over in a sense, in what ever area it was in. And who doesn't like a fresh start?
Now, these new seasons and chapters are filled with anxiety. Anxiety about having to meet new people at your new job, to put on a happy face, to tell your story (because you know it's going to come out, as it should, your baby very much existed and gave your life purpose). New seasons are also reminders for me that my baby isn't with me. She isn't doing life with me on this side of Heaven. She isn't going to be here to participate in our silly family Christmas festivities. She won't be turning a year old here on Earth.
It just hurts. It hurts to the core and I've realized it isn't a feeling that can be described. It is an experience that we are living every single day. I'm almost to the point that I don't want people to try to understand because they wont. They can't. All that they need to understand is that we need them now more than ever. And maybe in a few months more than now. We need people to cry for us when we can't cry another tear, pray for us when we can't catch our breath to pray, and just 'be'. People don't understand the impact that their presence has on someone who couldn't feel more alone... All because this precious tiny human isn't here any more. We need people who will just listen... Listen to us talk about our child. Listen to our frustrations. Listen to our questions. If you've found someone who doesn't want to hear about it anymore, let them go. There are so many precious souls who will listen to you. We will never 'get over it'. Ask them how many times a day they think about their living child and them ask them to not. It's impossible.
I pray that any new season, chapter, or beginning will take on a new meaning for you. I am wholeheartedly going to approach these times as a positive. Yes, we will cry. We are sad. But we can also smile at the impact that our precious one has made. I am realizing more and more every single day all the ways that my Avery blessed us and changed us and left us with things that we will have forever, until we see her again. My heart grew 1,000 times when I met and loved her. I now have so much love to give. She made me see how brave I am. I've done things in the last 8 months that I never ever thought I'd be able to do. Imagine what I'm capable of now. I pray that I will teach my students lessons that go way past the textbooks or curriculum. Avery taught me so many. I am realizing that there is a love, a happiness, a kind of joy that you can only experience after sorrow. So I look at these new seasons in anticipation for that very joy. I pray you can too.
I cry as I write this. I cry at the fact that there are so many others hurting the way we hurt. Please remember your child in your new season and smile... Smile because there is so much beauty that is going to come.
I have to believe this.
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