Alison H
It’s been a gradual process, and has taken a lot of years, but I seem to have reached a point where the grief has faded somewhat. For a long time, my grief would be the first thing on my mind when I woke every day, and it would be the only thing I ever wanted to talk about, because I couldn’t think about anything else. Which made life quite difficult because not many people wanted to hear about it, or were able to empathise with me when they did.
It used to be the case that my world was full of triggers and it felt like I was walking through a minefield every time I left the house. There wasn’t an aspect of my life that was unafffected, and the secondary losses were huge. I stopped doing everything: working in an office, hanging out with friends, keeping in touch with friends, talking to family, watching tv, reading books, going to cafes and restaurants, going shopping, travelling on public transport. I even stopped leaving the house, when things were at their toughest.
What I learned, the hard way, though, was that avoidance isn’t a good long term strategy when it comes to pain. I found that the pain always managed to find me, even when I was hiding at home, too scared to leave the house for fear I’d see a baby or a pregnant woman. That lesson really hit home when a couple with a young baby moved in next door to me and I could hear the baby crying in the night. I remember thinking that the universe was deliberately torturing me. I moved house and literally the first person I met when I went to the new place was, you guessed it, a pregnant woman.
In time, I realised that I had to live my life despite the painful triggers and that I shouldn’t let it stop me from doing things. So I’ve been gradually reclaiming my life back, bit by bit. I’m now living in a place I love. I’ve found some new friends who I can be honest with, and they don’t have memories of the pre-loss person that I once was; all they know is the ‘me’ that I am now. I found a new job which involved going into an office again, and I waded through the usual triggering moments, the ‘do you have children’, ‘have you thought about adoption’, and so on, and so on. There were some tough moments, but I survived them.
I can enjoy tv , films and books again, though I no longer care for ‘happy ending’ romcoms, which used to be my favourite. I can even tolerate watching programmes with babies in them. That feels like a major victory.
I once again enjoy going shopping and can tolerate walking through a department store toy section, or baby clothes section. I can look at a New Baby greetings card without crying. I can sit on a train and cope with a nearby young family without wanting to cry. I can walk past a children’s playground and not want to fall apart or run away. I can hold a conversation with an acquaintance or a colleague and listen with equanimity when they talk about their children. It doesn’t make me cry anymore. None of these things make me cry anymore - usually.
There are still some things I avoid, of course. Weddings, for some reason, are intolerable for me now and I always find an excuse not to go. Visiting extended family with babies is still in the ‘too-hard’ category, I’m sorry to say. I can look at babies now but I haven’t held one in over a decade, and can’t imagine being able to, anytime soon. Any kind of event which is advertised as being for families is something I avoid these days - I know the kind of left-out feeling it’ll give me and it no longer feels worth it. Any baby-themed event (luckily I haven’t been invited to many) e.g. a baby shower or just meeting a colleague’s new baby: no thanks, I don’t need to do that to myself.
But that’s pretty much it. My world has gone back to some sort of ‘normal’ and I can pass in polite company for someone whose world hasn’t fallen apart.
I no longer feel like my childlessness is the only thought in my head and the only words I want to speak - these days, I can meet someone new and (if they don’t ask) we can have a whole conversation where I don’t think about my childlessness at all. It has become just one aspect of who I am, when once it was all of me. Sometimes I don’t think much about it at all.
For the first time in over a decade I can think about my future, and I am beginning to find my own dreams again, my own hopes. It feels dangerous to have hope again, but I can feel it bubbling up sometimes. I no longer feel like the universe is making a point of torturing me, but rather that I have something to learn from the things that have (and haven’t) happened in my life. I practice gratitude and feel blessed in my life, in different ways.
And, alongside all of that, I am acutely aware that the loss sits within me, all the time, even when I’m not thinking about it. The grief, which nearly broke me, will never leave. I’m making friends with my grief these days - I consciously tend to it when I feel I need to; usually about once a year I’ll go and do some grief tending work in community with others, and it really helps. Holding those places of pain tenderly, and with the support of others, is a beautiful practice. It might sound strange but it brings me great joy.
So, my world feels a bit safer these days - I feel reasonably confident that I can go about my day without expecting something to knock me for six. It does still happen, of course. The kinds of things that affect me these days are: maybe I hear a young person talk about their dreams for the future, ‘when I have kids’, and I experience an unwelcome surge of envy. Or when I get a sudden flash of fear about being old, alone and having nobody to look after or advocate for me if I get ill. Or when I feel a sense of the nurturing potential that is my gift and feel terribly sad that this is a largely untapped well. Or when someone my age knows something about pop music or technology that I don’t know; I realise the only reason they know it is because their kids taught it to them, which brings another fear of getting left behind by the modern world. Or when there is an unexpected pregnancy announcement from someone I know. Or when someone trots out the old cliches, or someone makes an assumption about my life and I feel a surge of anger at the lack of empathy and awareness around my situation.
But the good thing is that all of these triggers are now so familiar that I don’t usually fall apart. I catch my breath, notice and register the pain, give myself a little virtual hug, and then carry on. This feels like a huge victory.
I can get through my world pretty successfully these days. I have a feeling of coming into myself after years of being lost and not knowing who I was. I’ve started again with version 2.0 of me and I kind of like her. She is a survivor, she has freedom she hasn’t yet fully explored, she isn’t afraid of very much, and she can look directly at her own and others’ pain without flinching. She also has a well developed sense of joy and appreciates the beauty of the tiny things in life. I think she’s going to have some fun adventures in this new, unexpected life.
Photo by Freddy Kearney on Unsplash