Capture Your Grief - Day 4. Dark and Light

 Today we are acknowledging the dark and the light sides of grief. The ugly and the beauty. The bitter and the sweet. The anger and the peace. You might want to write about the moments when everything falls apart or maybe the moments where our eyes are opened to the gifts that this journey has in store for us. Maybe you just want to write about both.

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The darkness of this journey is that nothing ever seems right. Of course there is the deep darkness of grief from which you feel, at first, you will never emerge. The sadness and darkness is expected lots of times. But even the beautiful, picture perfect family moments of happiness are tinged with darkness because Simone is supposed to be here. And she's not. We sing happy birthday to a baby who isn't alive, she won't ever use the Christmas stocking I made her, we cry on our own birthdays and Father's Day and Mother's Day are rough days indeed.

The light comes from being able to help others. For Simone's birthday, with the help of our friends and family, we donated $5,000 worth of grieving books and handprint kits to the hospital where she was born. To know we have turned some of our pain into hope for other families surely gives us light. 

Several people have asked for my help and guidance after learning of a friend or family member who had just experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. Just the other week, a woman at Lane's work called him because her daughter had just been told her baby's heart had stopped. She was about to go be with her daughter for the stillbirth of her first grandbaby. I sent her a ton of information too, after Lane answered all her questions. It's devastating to hear of other people fresh in their grief. But there is some comfort that these people have someone to turn to, that we can share what we learned, what we wish we had known at the beginning, in hopes of making their experience at least a tiny bit less overwhelming, or for their family to have an idea of how to better support them. I suppose that is us bringing a sliver of light to the darkness in which others find themselves.