Grief and Gratitude Can Coexist

A little trigger warning that this post talks about feelings of deep depression. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or even depressive thoughts, please know you're not alone. 988 is always available for someone to listen and I am more than happy to help guide you in the way of finding a mental health professional who can help you.

Grief and gratitude, where do I even begin? I mean, I guess I could start with the grief part, and give a little insight to what getting thrown straight into the grief pit looked like for me, personally. I've always heard of grief, and I have in fact experienced loss before. I've had grandparents die, I've had close family friends die, I've known people from my hometown who have died. All of which were extremely sad and all of which involved some sort of impact on my life, but nothing to the degree that I experienced with my son died. In fact, naively, when we got the news that Tacoma died and once I a little bit of time to process it, I was like "okay, I can do this. I've known people to die before. We'll get through it. It can't be too different, right?"LOL WRONG, girl!

My son dying was absolutely nothing like any other death I have ever experienced. Then you add the layers of how my body turned into the place of death, and how it was a loss of life that never got to experience the outside world, woof. However, I think that is what makes it even more complicated and even more challenging for people to understand mine and even my wife's grief, which is how this blog post even became about. Because the reality is, no one wants to talk about babies dying. No one wants to acknowledge how difficult it is when someone has a pregnancy loss, and it's just easier to think "well you can have another baby and then that'll be fine." Yeahhhhh, definitely it'll make it all better. NOT. Grief still exist when a woman experiences a pregnancy loss, their loss is just as valid as any other, and having another baby or getting pregnant again does not just "fix" or "make it better."

The grief that came from Tacoma's death is a complex one. We obviously grieve his life specifically. The life we planned for him, the life we wanted for him. The memories that we were supposed to make with him. Then we grieve the things we never got to experience with him, because like I said, he was a life that never got to experience the world outside of my womb. So we grieve the baby shower that we missed, the first birthday, the fifth birthday, even his twentieth birthday, all of which we will never get to physically experience with him, but all of which were plans that we made and thought about when we found out we were pregnant. We grieve the sibling relationship he was supposed to have with his sister. Then there's the things we grieve like never getting to hear his cry, laugh, or voice. Never getting to watch him grow up, never getting to experience watching him learn to walk or ride a bike, or drive a car. All of which were things that were only thoughts and conversations, but all of which were things we planned and talked about with so much excitement and happiness. Then the part of the grief that is challenging for most to understand is that we grieve that our family will never physically look whole. There will always be one person in our family missing. For me specifically too, I grieve the thought of watching my son interact with certain family members, watching him play football. I grieve the fact that I have to wonder forever what color his eyes would've been and if his hair would have stayed blonde. I grieve that one day I had to call each member of my family and tell them that our baby had died. I grieve that during each of the pregnancies our family has experienced we haven't gone to an appointment without knowing that we were either high risk or that something could be wrong. I grieve the innocence I had that even though we knew we were high risk or that we had some complications, that nothing could actually happen to us. I grieve the person I was before Tacoma died. The care free, innocent, naive, person I was. Because you see, the thing with pregnancy loss, is you don't just grieve the life that is lost, you grief everything that you planned and envisioned with it, you grieve for yourself, and for the family that you pictured and wanted so badly.

I had never felt grief before and when I did... it hit me like a ton of bricks because you see with my grief it also brought along depression. Which let me tell you was something that took a very long time for me to accept and even longer to believe was "okay" or that it could happen to me. Depression for me is scary. It's like this dark, foggy, scary place that I truly never wish upon anyone. From the outside though, besides probably to my wife, my depression wasn't super visible. I got up, I went to work, I completed my job. I showered, I got dressed, I put on make up. I laughed, I made jokes, I went out in public. I didn't stay in bed, but gosh did I want to. I didn't not take care of myself, but eating and showering and getting ready for the day were some of the hardest tasks. Depression doesn't always look like lying in bed, or not taking care of yourself, and I think that's why partially why it is and was so hard for people to understand. During this time my brain truly couldn't work. I didn't think straight, I was not the best at remembering things, it was like the foggiest day ever, every single day. The scariest part of all of this, though is that looking back I never realized just how sad and depressed I was until I went to therapy one day and finally said "I do not want to die, I have no plans and no intent. In fact the thought of dying and leaving my family scares me more than anything. However, I do feel like they would be better off without me and that scares me and makes me really sad." Saying those things outloud to someone really hit me like "damn, Sam. You are depressed, you do need help, and the longer you avoid it the harder it's going to be."

Which by this part, if you've read this far, you're probably like "okay, Debbie downer why the heck did you even put gratitude in here if you're just talking about depression and grief??" So let me tell you... because I thought that I could just beat my depression and snap out of grief and depression fog brain simply by being grateful. Like I journaled DAILY and thought DAILY of all the things in my life that I was and could be grateful for. I thought of our daughter, my wife, how lucky we were to get pregnant in the first place. I thought of our home, my job, my car, the sunrise and sunset. I thought of my own health and how I too, didn't die or get extremely sick when Tacoma died. I thought of my support system of friends and family. I thought of my wifes friends, my wifes job, and how my wife was going above and beyond all while dealing with my looney self. I thought of the fresh coffee I was able to drink each morning and the food in our pantry. I thought about the gratitude I felt to even have the means to access therapy. All of which are things that I am so grateful for but guess what... in the pit of grief and in the darkness of depression, thinking of those things didn't make anything better. I mean yeah, it helped me get out of bed and smile and laugh. They all of course brought some joy to my life and I mean to be completely honest, the thought of my wife and daughter truly saved my life most days and helped me to keep going. However, it didn't make the grief easier. It was still there, and the depression lingered with it. Which let me tell you was pretty frustrating because I do feel very fortunate and grateful for the life that I have. I am incredibly lucky to be where I am.

It wasn't until intense therapy and truly accepting the depression though that I started to see improvement. Even now, I wouldn't say it's easier I have just learned boundaries and acceptance, and learned how I can be both grieving AND grateful for what I have. That I can be sad AND grateful for what I have. That both things can exist and I can hold a space for them at the same time and that is okay. Feelings are hard and allowing two contrasting emotions to exist together is a really hard skill to learn. Especially in a society that doesn't talk about them or has a hard time acknowledging the harder ones to feel like grief, depression, sadness and anger. Then you add the complexity of growing up in a family that did not acknowledge or talk about feelings too often, and they are even harder to manage, talk about and work through. It's no wonder people just want you to "get over it" or "move on", it's hard to understand and it's hard to relate to.

I am not perfect. There are many days I let my grief get the best of me and I will argue until I'm blue in the face trying to force people to understand why I am the way I am, or trying to explain my feelings. Then there are other days while I just smile nod, keep my mouth shut, and remind myself to be grateful that not everyone will experience a loss like I did. So I think that if I could ask someone reading this to just take away one thing from this post it would be to try and see from someone else's perspective. Our world is made up of so many different unique individuals who have each had to walk a different journey than we have. Instead of judging, maybe try to shift perspective, believe the person is doing the best they can and even ask yourself "what happened to them to make them behave, think, or be this way?" because while trauma is not an excuse to be a shit human, shifting your perspective might just open the door to connection and lead to healing. Which coming from someone who has put in a lot of work to get to the other side and work on healing parts of me, I can tell you, you deserve it, and it's a feeling that is worth getting to.

XOXO,

Sammy