My grief shifts a little every day. It morphs, and changes and moves. Some days it feels much smaller. Other days it feels like it has multiplied exponentially overnight. It has done this from the beginning, even from before there was any death – from when there was just fear and anticipatory grief.
Sara’s death was so strangely timed. 2019 was supposed to be a huge year for us in all the best ways, but it turned out to be the worst kind of roller coaster. We conceived our son, Sara got cancer, Sara responded super well to treatment, George was stillborn, Sara’s cancer spread further but seemed to respond well again to treatments, then Sara died. Talk about highs and lows and the surreal entanglement of potential, new life, joy, death, grief, hope, and devastation.
Sara’s death gutted me. I didn’t believe it would actually happen until just 24-48 hours before it did – up until that point, I was delicately balanced on a needlepoint of hope that we would sort out all her complicated medical problems, and that she would blast the fucking cancer out of her body and that we would go on to have another child, and ride into the sunset like we’d always planned – she being a stay-at-home mom for a few years like she’d always dreamed. We’d been actively planning or trying to have a child since Fall 2017.
It didn’t take very long after Sara’s death for me to know, to KNOW that I needed to keep trying to conceive. I’ve always wanted to be a father. Sara wanted to see me be a father, and she was so heartbroken that she couldn’t be the one to carry a child for us. We never talked about what my life might look like if she died, but I can almost feel her next to me, kissing my neck and telling me that it is okay to keep going. I can see Sara, wherever she is, taking care of the soul of my future child – who was supposed to be our rainbow baby together.
Today was a big day. I went in to the fertility clinic and got a beginning-of-the-cycle ultrasound, and got the prescriptions for the drugs to help do what I need to do to try to conceive again in approximately 10-14 more days. This is my first attempt as a solo person. It has been 5 1/2 months since we lost George, and will be 3 months since I lost Sara on Sunday.
It is hard to put into words how it feels to be dancing with grief while also taking steps to conceive new life. I talked to her in the car today, on my way into work after the doctor appointment. I miss her so SO much, and would give almost anything to have her here continuing this effort to have a child with me. It feels wrong to not have her here, but it would also feel wrong to give up on a dream that I’ve had my whole life.
It still hurts, so much. I’m not moving on, but I’m continuing with the only thing in my life that makes sense right now. My grief and my love for Sara and George will be a part of this. While Sara isn’t here physically, my future child will know her name, and will know that she would’ve been here with us if she could’ve been. And, my future child will know that he or she has an older brother George who was loved and carried for almost 20 weeks.
Every day I feel my grief shift. It has never been static. By allowing myself to open up a part of my heart to hope and potential again – it is allowing me to reconnect to the love Sara and I had before the shadow of cancer and loss moved in. I love her and I miss her and I’m grieving her and I’m grieving our shared future…and I’m starting to craft my future without her as a living part of it. I can hold all of those truths simultaneously. Some days it hurts more than others. Some days I feel like I’m walking on the thinnest of wire. But – I told her this in the car today – somehow I’m going to be okay. Maybe not today, and maybe not even in a year, but big-picture, I’m going to somehow be okay, and I’m going to continue carrying our love and my grief with me.