This past week I had my 6 week check up after having the girls. I absolutely can not believe that it has been that long. All summer fall seemed so far away. Fall meant we were hitting safety zone with the twins. We would have been 24 weeks this week, September 5th. 24 weeks meant hospitalization, which I was terrified of, but it also meant viability, a huge milestone.
We had already agreed with our doctor's that I wouldn't be hospitalized until after I was able to take Charlotte to her first day of preschool. Perhaps that is part of the reason I have been so apprehensive towards her going. It seems like even though everything is moving forward there is a part of me stuck back in July, not willing to believe that what we had planned for this fall is no longer what it will hold for us. There is another part of me, that is growing bigger every day, beginning to accept the changes that have taken place over the last 6 weeks. A part of me that is allowing for these events to move us forward and I am really desiring to find a way to let them change me for the better.
I feel like I have 2 choices. I can hurt constantly and allow myself to wallow in my grief, to let it drown me and to succumb to every hurting piece of my heart. Or, I can hurt constantly but use that to find what can make me feel better. It won't heal me, but it will make me feel like they have impacted my life for the positive. I think that they would want that. They would want to know that they made their Mom a better person. So everyday I dig a little deeper and work hard to be the person I would want them to know me as.
I would want them to know a happy person, a healthy person, a good Mom and Wife. Someone who embraces fun, loves her family, and works hard. I am trying to complain less, love more, and in all cliche-ness, "look on the bright side". Not all of these things are happening at once, but little by little I am working on them all. This last week the kids and I ventured to the beach to enjoy a nice hot, summer day before they end. It was before 10:00am when we got there and we were about the only people in sight. A friend of mine stopped to visit and we chatted. Charlotte played in the sand and splashed in the water. Oliver played on the blankets and would occasionally grab a handful of sand and look at me like "what is this?!?". I feel good to be getting out more and doing these things with my kiddos that I dreamed this summer would have been filled with. I suppose, it's never too late.
Sometimes people think that if you are grieving you need to be outwardly upset or your grief doesn't exist. Untrue. I was talking with my best friend this past week and we were discussing that very idea. She lost her brother when she was 12 and she felt like even then people were judging her behavior. "How can you be laughing/smiling/having fun when your brother just died?" Because like summer moving to fall, life still goes on.
I think about Ruthie and Imogene every day. Every. Single. Day. Every morning when I am working out (yep folks...you heard that right. Like exercise and the whole bit. I even wear "work out" clothes) I think of them. The sun always rises during class and the sky turns pink. Every time I see the pink sky I think, "Hey. There's my girls". Not to mention the dozens, heck even hundreds of times I think of them beyond that. Just because life keeps going doesn't mean our thoughts of them don't. So I do have some comfort in welcoming fall that they are coming with me, and they always will.
No comments:
Post a Comment