I lost my first child.
I.Lost.My.First.Child.
I lost my daughter. Yes, even typing it over and over I feel like I’m writing about someone else’s life. How can I possibly know such pain?
I look at pictures of my baby girl, the ones where my husband and I were holding her, smiling at her, the happy moments where we were so naive to think anything so horrible could ever happen to us.
And it pains me.
Sometimes I feel as if I’m drowning in ache, swallowing hard and still not able to swallow all the grief. It’s been over 4 years since she passed away but some days, even moments within a day, the pain feels so raw it feels like it was just yesterday that I held her, watched her take her last breath.
It has affected me so much and continues to crawl through every aspect of my life. How I see the world, how I fear the world, and how I live in the world. I can’t escape it, and I’ll never get over it. But somehow the days go by and I manage to get through it. I manage to love my husband and my other two sons; I manage to smile and laugh; I manage to live and carry on. But don’t be mistaken, I feel like the happiest sad person. I’m a closet griever. I’ve got a hole in my heart, a yearning that I can’t put into words to have someone comfort me. Not that it would matter because I cannot be healed, at least not on Earth. One day in Heaven.
Having lost a child, I’m not sure if it’s made me a better parent or a worse one. I question every judgment call I make. I worry there will be no tomorrow, which makes me scared to discipline or make my children unhappy by placing them in time out, withholding daily treats or other spoilings. But I do these things, after all it is my duty to teach them right and wrong, that they can’t have everything they want, when they want. But it is a struggle for me, a guilt filled struggle. I know we all question ourselves as parents, I often wonder if I am normal? Do I doubt my parenting skills just like every other mom or dad? Or am I truly so scarred from losing a child that I’m going to pass the damage of loss on to my children by my parenting skills, or lack thereof (this is how it feels sometimes).
How does one move forward, get past all the fears that come with losing innocence and naïveté, and know that what we are doing is the best way possible? Are we all trying to keep our head above water? Or am I so far under the water I can never come back to normalcy? For now I will continue to do what I have no choice but to do, take one day at a time, listen to my gut, cry on the inside, smile on the outside, and pray.
Christy is a SAHM to two active little boys and one angel daughter who now lives in heaven. You can read more about the loss of her daughter on her sister’s blog. Christy and her family encourage anyone interested in helping other families avoid their tragedy to make a donation to St. Judes.