Triggers

I  never know when grief is going to strike.  I hate that I can't predict it or be able to arm myself with the tools to handle it at any given moment.  It seems to come when I least expect it.  As sad as it is, I know it will always be a part of my life.  Twenty years from now, I am sure it will still hit me at an unexpected, inappropriate time. 

I have felt more sad in the last few weeks.  Like I said, grief is such a roller coaster.  I can go days on end and be okay, and then it strikes again.  I took Maggie and Elliott to the cemetery last week to take Norah some flowers.  I was expecting to see her pinwheels spinning in the wind, but as we pulled up, all we saw was grass.  Maggie ran over and starting yelling "Norah is gone.  I can't find her!  I can't find her!"  While I understand that the cemetery must clean up dead flowers, I was so devastated to see that they had also taken her pinwheels.  I sat on the ground and just sobbed and sobbed.  I couldn't control it.  I don't usually try to hide my tears from Maggie and Elliott (they are used to me crying at this point),  but this was a full on melt down.  Greg was at lunch and I called him in the midst of all of this--he could barely understand me.  He reminded me that this is just "stuff."  I just want to cling to the "stuff" so badly because I don't have a baby to cling to. 

Why does this have to be so hard?  Why does this have to suck so badly?  Will I always cringe at the sound of a newborn screaming at the grocery store?  Will I always feel like I am going to have a panic attack when I see adorable baby girls all around me and always be thinking I want MY baby?  Why me?  Why us?  Why Norah?

I have been reading this daily devotional--well, Greg reads it and sends it to me.  The last couple of days have been great.  Here is what it says today... (Our Daily Bread)

When we experience the fiery furnace of suffering—whether physical or emotional, whether persecution from without or humiliation from within—God’s loving 

purpose is to make us pure and strong.

 

God uses testing in our lives
To rid us of impurity
And teach us that our strength’s in Him
And not in self-sufficiency. —Sper

 

Suffering is the fire that God uses to purify and strengthen us.

 

"My strength is made perfect in weakness." —2 Corinthians 12:9

 

God, what in the world are you trying to teach me through all of this?  I wish I could look to my future self to see how the story turns out.  I know I will be okay, but I will ALWAYS have a deep yearning to know my daughter--that part of the grief will never, ever go away.