I originally shared the content below on my Facebook profile (on the date in the Title). To understand more about the “Facebook Memory” posts, please read About: This Blog. Click here to see a full list of the Morgan Facebook Memories.
Two Paths in Grief: Healing and Despair
Grief is a journey that has no particular destination. It doesn’t end, just evolves over time. There are two main paths in the grieving journey: healing or despair. People can either spiral downward into despair, or crawl upward into healing.
Every day – every hour – is a choice to take one path or the other. And it’s never perfect – there’s lots of “one step forward, two steps back” kind of days.
Being on the path of healing doesn’t mean forgetting or “moving on”. It doesn’t mean there are no more triggers or bad days. It just means there’s a scab where a gaping wound once was, and hope that maybe one day there will be a scar instead of a scab. It’s learning to live in the new reality without your loved one as best as you can.
When every day is a constant battle to climb up instead of fall down, it can be hard to see how far you’ve climbed. So it’s always encouraging to notice that some healing has taken place. Hindsight can be a big blessing in be grief journey. Recently I was privileged to identify an area of healing in my journey.
The Nagging Question
One of my biggest struggles has been this Question:
“If God was going to call Morgan home so soon, why did he have to be here at all?”
I’ve had some MAJOR guilt over this Question – it took me months to even verbalize it for the first time. I was loving and missing Morgan with every ounce of my being, but simultaneously wondering if it would’ve been better if I had never been pregnant. It was such a corrosive thought. It’s the kind of Question that ate at my resolve to climb and made it easy to slip into despair.
Then last week I was talking with a friend and she told me she and her husband just recently started “trying”. We were talking about how scary “trying” is because there’s no going back once you start hoping to get pregnant. Either you don’t and are disappointed in the core of your being, or you do and are a parent (with all of it’s joys and responsibilities) for the rest of your life.
Meaning, where there is the potential for love/joy, there is also the potential for struggle/pain. Being a parent is a huge responsibility, with no going back. A parent will constantly love and worry about their children. Forever. For better or worse.
Then she paused, looked at me with the scared eyes of a hopeful mother, and asked me an new question:
“Would you do it all over again knowing how it would turn out?”
And my immediate and honest answer was:
“YES.”
The Liberating Answer
Right then and there I realized I wasn’t struggling over that guilt-ridden, despair-inducing Question anymore.
I’d do it all over again, a thousand times if necessary. Because I didn’t “have” a baby…God GAVE me Morgan as a gift. And being his mom is the single greatest thing that has ever happened to me.
I was privileged to hold Morgan for 9 short months on this earth, and I can’t wait to hold him forever in Heaven. The journey in between is up to me, and I refuse to let his legacy be that I spiraled into despair. Therefore, every day I will try to climb towards healing instead of spiral into despair.
So here’s to the climb, little man. <3 I’ll see you on the Upside where “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.” (Rev 21:4)
