164: A letter to myself
Dear Megan,
Tonight, May 26th will be your last night hugging your daughter Aria alive. You came home from the farmers market, snuggled her, and she seemed a bit off. You got her dressed for bed, and thought about bow-bowing on the chair with her, but felt too busy, so you put her to bed without doing that. You will forever regret that decision.
Tomorrow morning May 27th, 2016, you will wake up and it will be like any other morning. Getting ready for a weekend of camping, the boys will come to snuggle in your bed, you’ll make some oatmeal, and then you’ll notice that it’s after 9 o clock, and it’s very late for Aria to be sleeping. So you go to check on her, and you find her dead in her crib.
You are forever changed at this moment. Everything shattered in a moment. Your brain snapped. Your body and mind couldn’t understand what was happening. You lost it, and this day is a horrific nightmare. There is nothing you can do to stop this moment from happening. Nothing you could have done to change that this was the outcome for your little girl. No matter how much you would have liked the outcome to be different, or would have wanted to go in there and find a living, breathing, and smiling little girl, you could not have saved her.
It was her time to go. I want you to know that. You might struggle with this guilt, wrestling with it for a time, but this is the nature of grief as well, as you will learn. Sometimes you will need to be with feelings and thoughts for a while even though they are so uncomfortable and you don’t even want to be living this nightmare that you are currently living.
Your life is forever changed. You are no longer the Megan that you were on May 26th, or even May 27th before 9:17 am. You are now a mother who knows trauma, grief, death, and the naivety that bad things happen to other people are stripped from your eyes. This will feel like a terrible thing for a long time. You will long to be your old self. You will hate your new life and normal. In time, you will learn to love who you are, to have compassion for your experience, and to grieve the loss of that part of you, but also learn how you’ve changed and become a better person because you’ve experienced such horrific darkness.
You will learn that some people won’t show up. That some people will be very uncomfortable with your grief and think you aren’t doing it right. There will be people who are thinking you are grieving too long, and that you should be over it by now. But know this, those aren’t your people. You will find that there are people who will listen as you go over and over your thoughts, feelings, and how hard this is. The friends and family who will ask you about Aria, who will ask how you are feeling at this moment, and who will simply listen as you try to process what just doesn’t seem to compute in your brain. Notice those friends and the people who are showing up, and don’t let the people who aren’t dragging you down, you don’t have any extra energy to spare on them.
This will be the hardest thing you will ever do. No matter what else happens in your life, learning how to say goodbye to your little girl, bury her, and continue to live your life will be the most earth-shattering and painful thing you can ever go through. Give yourself compassion through this process. Know that every time a grief wave comes, you are not going backward, you are just processing through another wave. It’s normal to be exhausted, drained, and not know what you need. It’s normal to be confused about what you need and want, and allow yourself to do what you need to do at the moment to survive.
On that day, you will lose your mental health. You will learn that the illusion of mental health can be shattered and taken away in an instant. You will feel crazy, you will learn what it feels like to have panic attacks, and anxiety attacks, to never feel safe, to never be able to relax, to be on edge and guard every moment of your life. You will learn what it feels like to start dying from the inside from the stress your trauma is taking on your body, as you constantly relive Aria dying again, and again, and try to stop it from happening again to one of your other kids, or to your husband, or to anyone you love. You have trauma, Megan. You are not broken. Your brain snapped at that moment, and thought it’s the hardest thing you can ever do. To do the healing work, know that it will be worth it in the end. You will be able to heal from your trauma, and you will have calm moments in your life again. You will know what it’s like to live with trauma, and you will be able to connect with others and help them in the future, but you need to take care of yourself first, and all the work, investment of time, and money are worth it to feel better in your future. You are taking good care of yourself.
You will learn that marriages can be tried and stressed to a very deep level and that you will wonder if yours will make it. Justin will tell you that he’s not sure if he loves you anymore and he’s kind of resigned to living the rest of his life with a wife he doesn’t know anymore. You will feel deep sorrow about this but completely understand. Because you will know you are different. You will know that your trauma is a huge stress on both of you and your family, but keep going. Keep trying to connect. You are on the right path, taking care of your trauma, and your grief. Keep fighting for your marriage and having hard conversations. You will find that you will experience the deepest trust, and how amazing it is to go through something so devastating and learn how to communicate on such a deeper level. Your marriage will always be work in progress, but this will bring you closer in the end.
I could go on and on about how your life will change. How you were just floating along in your life, and how it shattered in an instant. All the questions you will have, all the things you will have to process, all the hard work in front of you. It’s unending.
But I want you to know this. You will be taken care of. You will be given the tools and resources to heal. You will find a way to carry grief and joy. You will learn how to manage and live with anxiety and heal your trauma. You will learn how to integrate grief into your life. You are going to be okay one day. One day, you will smile and laugh again, and be excited about your future, and you will know it doesn’t make you a bad mother. In the future, as you imagined when you were getting the help that you wanted to help others someday, you will help others. You will help other women walk this path, guiding them forward, showing them how to feel and process their emotions, and helping them discover what’s best for them on their grief journeys.
You are going to be okay Megan. But until then, I wish there was something I could do to stop what’s coming for you. But I can’t. And you can’t either. This is going to happen and there will always be something going to happen, and there is nothing that either of us can do to change the inevitable outcome. So, take one moment at a time, processing, feeling, grieving, and being, you are going to be okay. You have to go through the dark tunnel, but know that it’s going to be okay in the end.
All my love and I’m waiting here for you on the other side
Megan
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