The World Spins Madly On

Tears.   An ocean of tears.  A lifetime of heartbreak somehow packed into 11 short months. 

She would be trying to walk by now.  Instead, we are trying to manage to walk right now.

She would be learning how to speak and make herself heard in this world.  Instead, we are trying to learn the new language of expressing our grief, and how to help others understand where we’re at.

She would have been a happy baby with three wonderful brothers to love her and look out for her.  Instead we are doing our best to “put on a happy face” for our boys, and let them know we will love them and look out for them.

Where has the time gone?  Eleven months…

They say that time flies when you’re having fun, but nobody ever prepares you for what it does when your child dies.

When your child dies time is a rubber band.  Sometimes minutes stretch into what seem hours, and you are pulled to the point emotionally where you know you will snap.  Snap and become broken and no longer able to function. Useless to anyone and anything around you.  Broken in a way that nobody knows how to repair.  Like Humpty Dumpty, you feel you will fall off your wall.  Devastatingly cracked and broken…

And then you blink.  You blink and suddenly a month has gone by, maybe two.  Before you know it, you’re staring down the barrel of a year gone by, with what feels like only minimal participation on your part.  All around you the world spins madly on, and others (the non-zombies) go about their lives. 

Snow blankets the landscape, people celebrate and set anticipatory goals, the snow melts, flowers bloom, other babies are born, fireworks sound, leaves change color and fall to the ground, snow blankets the landscape, flowers bloom again.  And so it goes.  The world goes on, but you have no idea how.

They say time flies when you’re having fun, but when your heartbreaks, it goes so fast, it almost ceases to exist.  It is absolutely, without a doubt, the biggest mind screw there is. 

I miss my sweet girl.  I miss her as much today as I did the day we held her and she took her last breaths.  I miss her as much today as the day we gathered to remember her short life.  I miss her as much today as I have missed her in all my yesterdays that I have been without her. 

People say (and I’m sure, will continue to say) that it (the heartbreak and pain of the loss) lessens with time.  But they are wrong.  Or maybe they’re just not saying it right.

The missing her never goes away.  It never lessens, and I know it never will.  I will never miss Brynn any less than I do now.  She will always be missing from our family, and we will never reach a distance out when that will be okay or less heartbreaking than it is today.

But I will just have to continue to find a way to live with that.  I cannot try to fight it, or stuff it, ignore it or overcome it.  I have to live with it.  The pain of losing Brynna will always have to be riding right along side the rest of my life’s experiences.  Sometimes the pain will have a louder voice, and it will demand I pause, giving it the attention it feels it deserves.  And other times it will sit quietly allowing me to experience the goodness that life has to offer.

Eleven months ago our beautiful daughter was born.  Eleven months ago.

And the world spins madly on.