eventually there will be peace

when the mail comes it's been a mix bag of sympathy cards or birthday presents.  the birthday cards were a good distraction from the up and down roller coaster of sad condolences.  don't get me wrong - it's a blessing to get the cards and hear from all of these people supporting us through this twisting winding road.  however, some days it's more difficult to make it through the mail than others.

right after the match failed we continued to get baby girl presents that people had ordered when things had a positive outlook.  it was difficult to open those boxes and padded mailers, but i knew what was inside before i did - so i just braced myself for something pink before i ripped the tape off the box.  however, it got a little more difficult last week when b-day time was upon us.  i was not sure if it was going to be something joyous or something else to put into the nursery.  my grandpa actually did the silliest thing (IMO) and gave me a combo card for my b-day and his expression of sadness that we still did not have our sweet darling deer.

the mantle is a mixture of cards.  a hodge podge if you will.  its the good, the silly, the sad, the sweet, all of those things that friends and loved ones do to make you feel better when you're sad or to wish you happiness to commemorate the day you were born.  we've received 23 notes so far, just from people to let us know they are thinking of us.

will and i decided that we grieve differently when we first really started talking about all of this.  we came to the consensus last week that i grieve hard and fast and that things take a little longer to hit him.  however, we found out this weekend that we're still both dealing with this, even though we thought we'd moved past it.  i told him that i learned that i still cannot drive alone in the car and cannot listen to k-love radio by myself.  we had this discussion over huevos rancheros on a sleepy saturday morning and both ended up in tears. 

we both agreed that this loss is just like our last miscarriage without the physical pain.  we're greiving what could have been, what we thought was going to happen, and where we thought our lives were headed.  it's hard for some people to understand how hard this loss can be, if you have not been down this road yourself.  but for once we felt closer to having a baby in our home than we'd ever been before, so this loss hits us hard - you know the kind that punches you right in the gut - the kind that takes your breath away - the kind that renders you speechless.

we know this takes time, and it's difficult now to move through the motions of the things that we thought would be different at this time because we thought a little one would be with us now.  will was sad that he had to go back on call (not for the work) but because he'd made arrangements to have someone cover him because he thought he would not be there.  it's just another thing that is not as we thought it would be.  it's these silly little things that can send us into sadness.  most of the day we're good.  we're fine.  we're okay.  but, you just never know what minutia will be the thing that sends you over the edge.

so thanks for the gifts, the cards, the difficult phone calls, the hard to mention the subject e-mails, and just being there.  we really appreciate all of it, even if we cannot say it.  we know eventually there will be peace.