Grief doesn’t run to a time schedule and that’s okay

It’s taken me some time to admit this in a more public way than with just a few friends, but after the loss of Nathanael, for about five years, I didn’t want to be around babies, I didn’t want to talk about babies, I didn’t want to hold babies.  You get the idea.

It’s probably only when I became a grandfather in 2019 that that mood began to thaw.

Part of the issue was again we were trying to fall pregnant, and nothing was happening, and nothing did happen.  We never had the “rainbow baby.”  And ultimately, having lost his little brother, we gave up on the dream of having another little brother or little sister for our son.  That was another level of grief.  And there are so many nuances and threads of grief connected with all these events, some we’re at liberty to discuss, some we can’t, and some we can’t even describe.

I write this now to connect with those many parents or would-be-parents who are struggling in their quest for a child.  At the opposite end, there are many who struggle because they have their child, whether it’s around special needs and disability, or there’s post-partum depression in either or both Mum and Dad.  These adjustments involve loss and grief.

It didn’t worry me that something in my heart had grown cold and distant in terms of others’ babies.  Part of the challenge was healing.  I knew it and I accepted it.  But part of the journey was also accepting that while God gives, God also takes away (Job 1:21).  It feels bizarre, even maddening, when some prayers just aren’t answered the way we’d want them to be.  But each and every one of us will find ourselves in that place in our lifetimes.

I’ve watched myself gradually warm to others in their baby bliss.  More these days is the case that I’m connected to my four babies that did survive.  These four don’t so much make up for the devastating loss of Nathanael but more so it’s a matter of my focus.

Then I’m reminded of the many people we know who don’t have partners.  Or who are still trying to fall pregnant, or who so strongly yearn for a second child like we did, or those who must say goodbye to the dream of a healthy baby for some other reason that’s beyond their control.  Or for the person who can’t yet safely have a child.

Grief turns us off certain things and when we identify what those things are it’s okay.  It can be a real task to get beyond the guilt and shame of not feeling the way we think we should.

It’s okay that we don’t yet have an answer as to why we struggle to love in some situations.

It’s okay that our heart’s not in it to “rejoice with those who rejoice.”

Facing our grief is as important as being as cheerful as we can with those who have reason to celebrate.  That others may not have a clue regarding how hard it is for us is a grace we can extend to them.  Nobody reads minds.  But suffering enlivens empathy.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to enter situations of triggering voluntarily when to not to would hurt others.  There are friends and family who have been ecstatic, and we can’t avoid them. We can’t shut our eyes to the babies in the shopping malls and doctor’s surgeries.  Then there’s all the advertising where perfect families are paraded as the halcyon of life.

The slow burn of pregnancy, fertility treatment, and child loss wears people down over the years, and it’s a journey of faith to keep coming back month after month after month.

Life’s not always as we would want it.  Many times in life we don’t get what we so passionately desire.  If that’s as it is, and it is, then it must be okay that we continue to grieve such facts.  It’s our life, it’s our truth.

It’s not good enough to gaslight a person into submission if they haven’t healed on another person’s timeframe.  It’s God’s prerogative and agenda, and it’s not for anyone to judge the timing and expression of a person’s grief.

Please don’t put pressure on people to “heal” just because they’re grieving their losses.

Don’t put pressure on anyone to act a certain way.  Loss is its own phenomenon, and grief has its own trajectory.

NOVEMBER 2022 EDIT:

Having written this originally in March 2022, we suffered the loss of Mum in August 2022.  Mum agreed wholeheartedly with the premise of the article, and yet now, as a family, we regale in disbelief at times that it’s less than 3 months since she passed, yet we’ll never get used to her gone.  I recall Mum telling me that she continued to miss her mother (d. 1990), her stillborn daughter (d. 1973), and many other losses.  It’s probably best said that loss and grief change us.  I think it’s fair to say that though grief doesn’t work on a time schedule, it does enlarge us so we can accommodate the effects of grief in our lives all the while getting on with our lives.  And just as well.