The Beach

The vast majority of what I write here is for fun. I love to make people smile, I love to make them laugh. I’m all about the happiness. Because of that I’ve wrestled a long time with this posting, on whether or not to post it here, on whether or not it belongs. In the end, though, this is my space… and as much as I love to create happiness, that’s not ALL of who I am. For those who truly just want something light, I suggest checking out some of my other posts. But I do hope you’ll come back to this one eventually.

A lot of very important people in my life are dealing with grief right now… some are right in the middle of the storm, some feel like helpless bystanders. This is a post that I realized NEEDED to be written… not just for myself, but on the off chance that it DOES make a difference to someone. That can be just as valuable as laughter. These days are not easy ones… but they are ours.

It’s Sunday and I’m probably at the grocery store, pushing my cart from aisle to aisle, throwing in the usual bits and pieces that make up my family’s diet: hamburger; chicken (always chicken); apples for the boy whose only fruit or vegetable consumption is apples, peanut butter and jelly for the lunchbox. Bread. I will smile and chat with the few people I see that I know before heading to the checkout lanes. I’ll hand over my coupons (not many; I still can’t get the hang of couponing), swipe my card as I accept their thanks, and then trek out to the car to load the bags into the trunk. I’ve deliberately parked at the edge of the parking lot, and not to prevent someone from dinging the doors of our lovely Honda, or for the extra steps I can ratchet up on my pedometer. It’s so when I sink into the leather seats I can just sit for a while, absorb the quiet, and close my eyes without anyone staring at me, or impatiently honk as they wait for my parking spot. It’s so I can take a deep breath before turning the key. Today is a day that requires extra breaths, even all these years later. Today is a day that requires more quiet time.

It was sixteen years ago today, January 26^th, that we held our daughter for the last time. Sixteen years ago that my husband and I crossed the threshold into a parallel universe. That she was only twelve days old when we said goodbye has no bearing on our grief, nor does the fact that she was premature, that she was ill, that the cards were stacked against her from the beginning. In a parent’s eyes there is always hope, there is always something worth fighting for… until it’s taken away. There is truth in the statement that a parent’s heart grows to accommodate all the love she’ll feel for her child. It’s just that when that child is gone your heart doesn’t shrink. That piece just feels empty.

Many of the people reading this will know little to none about our journey, even those whom we consider close, personal friends. We were young when this happened; newlyweds. We were still figuring out how to live a life together when it was all torn apart.  Some that do know may not think about it. It’s been sixteen years, closing in on two decades, another lifetime ago. We don’t talk about it… so why should they? Why don’t we talk about it?

Of all the things that have been written about grief, in books and online, I seldom see how damned LONELY it is. How isolating. How, even when you are in a room full of people, you can feel utterly and completely alone. Grief is a lonely journey because it is a SOLITARY journey. No one else can know your grief, not your parents, not your best friend, not even your spouse. No one knows because they are not inside of your head, they have not had to make the choices that you have made. No one has the same questions, the same guilt you carry. Those that grieve with you will often grieve differently, need different things, things that neither of you can give. Grief is lonely, and loss has become a four letter word. As a society it makes us uncomfortable. Dealing with someone’s loss is a minefield that no one wants to traverse, and that’s understandable… but it’s also why eventually we stopped sharing our story, our daughter. Eventually you grow tired of your heart dropping over the averted eyes, the condolences, the sense of not support but pity that you know will eventually become a reason for people to avoid you. And so you stop. At least that’s what we did. We relied on our closest and oldest friends and our family for the support we needed and we tucked our daughter inside of our hearts.  And then times passes… and suddenly it’s sixteen years later and you realize that while everyone talks about how to handle the immediate aftermath… no one talks about how to survive the journey. They tell you to find your “new normal”, they tell you to find your blessings, and some may have the gall to tell you to just “move on”. They’ll tell you all of that, but no one talks about how. No one talks about the path from devastation to restoration.

Imagine that you are on vacation. Everything is going well, you’re having a great time. You decide to go parasailing. You’re flying along in the air, looking at the beach and the sea below you… when something happens. Something completely unexpected, something everyone told you could never happen while parasailing. Suddenly you’re plummeting down, falling to the sea, the world a blur of water and sky over and over and over again until you hit. You fell from just the right height for the impact not to kill you, but not so close that every part of your body doesn’t feel completely broken. The seas are rough, horrible, churning and sucking and spinning you as if you were caught in God’s own washing machine. You can’t find your way to the surface, and when you finally do you realize it doesn’t matter as wave after wave hits you, beats you, throws you back into the abyss. You can’t breathe. You can’t see. You can’t scream. All you can do is exist.

Eventually there is a break, a small break in the waves and you are able to catch your breath and get upright, just long enough to find the beach. It’s so far away it seems you’ll never make it back. You can see people standing there, waving to you, screaming. You see just enough before another wave hits you, and then another, then another. This goes on for a while… the brief break before the waves start again. You don’t know what’s better or worse… the chance to catch your breath or the repeated realization of where you are.

Then there’s a break that’s a little longer… long enough that you can paddle in a bit, until your toes touch the sand. You’re still too far out to help, but this time when the waves cease you can wiggle your toes into the sand and regain your equilibrium. Your head is above water enough to shout back, even if what you’re shouting is lies: I’m okay. I’m going to make it. No, there’s nothing you can do. I’ll be fine. Just give me time. I’ll make it back.

But eventually… eventually it feels less like a lie. You go from digging your very tippy toes into the sand to standing flat footed… to taking steps. The waves still hit, they still take your breath away, they still choke you and make you wonder if you’ll ever make it out. Sometimes they knock you to your knees, dragging you back under water, threatening to carry you back out to sea. It’s hardest to stand back up after those. But you do. And, when you can, weak in the knees and exhausted from the battle,  you take another step.

Eventually you realize that the waves aren’t dragging you under as much. You realize that you’re not staggering… but walking. You realize you’ve made it to the beach. When you look around, you notice that some of the people that were there at the beginning have gone, and you’re not sure when that happened. But you’ll notice others that never left, and when they take you by the arms and pull you to the sand you’ll discover that sometimes it was their shouted words that kept you fighting towards the surface when the waves would knock you back down again. In that moment you take a deep breath. You have survived.

You have survived… but the beach is now your home. Others don’t understand that… after what you went through, don’t you just want to leave? Don’t you want to go home? Of course you do… of course you want to go back to what was familiar and comfortable… but you can’t. This place is yours now. You build your house, and as you do you see other little houses along the beach… others who have been trapped in the waves and spit out on the shores.  Eventually you may walk down and say hello, see their house, but not yet.  Time passes, and the beach becomes comfortable. You grow used to the sound of the sea roaring so close by. You grow used to the way the water still laps at your toes, never really going away. Storms come… some worse than others. Some threaten to drag you back to the ocean’s depths… but you find a way to hang on, to fight back, to wait until the waves recede and you can catch your breath once more. And when strangers marvel at how you do it, how can you live your life so close to what almost killed you, you just shrug. There’s no other way. The sea has become a part of you now, both its fury and it’s gentle nostalgia. You are not the person you were before you plunged into its depths. You belong to it now, and it to you. It is up to you to figure out how to handle that relationship.

My house on the beach has grown over the years. With work and with time my husband and I found a way to merge our houses into one, we found a way to give each other what was needed. We added on two new rooms for our boys. Their rooms are far away from the water but they can see the waves. Their sister is not an unknown entity to them. They celebrate her birthday each year with us. They visit her grave, bringing her Winnie the Pooh statues and flowers and even baseballs. They have not grown up without her. Our friends visit and we’ve even invited new friends in to see over the years… and those closest to us did not avert their eyes. Instead they asked for a tour, asked to see our pictures and our momentos. Some even held our hands and walked along the water’s edge with us. They taught us not to make assumptions about how people will handle our struggles.  Our home has become one that, while created in grief and in anguish, is full of love and happiness. We have our sandbags against the storm. We have learned how to evacuate when the seas threaten to rise too high. But that doesn’t mean we don’t still wade into the water sometimes. It’s just that we know to hang onto each other now… and we know how to find our way out.

For those who are still in the waves, for those who are still struggling just to get their heads above water… we are on the beach waiting for you and we will be there as long as it takes. We will throw you a floatie when you most need it, but we understand that finding your feet is something only you can do. We will tell your friends to keep shouting, keep encouraging, to just KEEP LOVING YOU, because it matters, the voices in the darkness matter so very much.  Each step forward you make is a victory. How long it takes you to reach the sand is not important… just know that the sand is there. That we are here. That we are here, and we love you, all of the broken and bruised pieces of you.