Most days I look at myself and see/feel that I have become a relatively well-adjusted mother dealing with loss. It doesn’t mean that I still don’t experience various moments of sadness and really feel the hole in our family (and my heart) from our missing daughter. I know this. I wonder how I was able to navigate through the grief so “easily”, I wonder why my days now are spent in relative happiness or contentment with life…. I wonder if you resent me for it. I wonder if I am missing something here when I’m told that the other shoe will drop and maybe I just haven’t had it hit me in that big all out world ending type of way that brings me to my knees and makes me want to lock myself in a closet all day and bawl. I just don’t see myself going there. I’ve been able to process most of my feelings (and continue to do so whenever they surface), I’ve been able to lean on those closest to me at times where I needed to have her acknowledged. I remember my days with her and the few times that I actually got to hold her with fondness, even when the end result is so tragic. I know I am changed from the experience, and that the catharsis of working with other families experiencing loss is not a tool to wallow in mine, but one to honor her.
Am i not crediting my grief enough? Am I just lucky that I was able to cope with all of this and found the support that made it work for me? How does this look to others? Do I put them at ease knowing that there is a way through it or do I make them uneasy because how can I sit there and be functioning in life when they can’t even see that life anymore?
The Tangerine Owl Project 