Closer to Fine

This is how messed up grief is.

I feel OK today. Seriously OK. As in, someone could ask me the Dreaded Question ("How are you?"), and I could answer, "Good, thanks, and you?" and actually mean it. I'm thinking about returning to work in a couple of weeks, and the thought no longer terrifies me. I hung up pictures of Harper, I read condolence cards, I walked by the bassinet and smiled at the cat sleeping in the basket - and I felt OK. It was all in all, a pretty normal day, no weeping, no fits of rage. (Well, tears may have stung my eyes when talking about Harper to a genetics counselor today, but it didn't rise to actual crying....)

And now I can't stop wondering if there's something wrong with me?

There's no "right" way to do grief, I'm told - by therapists, by friends, by other parents who have gone through this. But it still feels like it's too soon to have a normal, utterly OK day. It makes me feel cold, heartless, like a terrible parent and human being.

How crazy is that: that feeling OK feels not OK? Bleargh.

I'm not a depressed person by nature. Quite the opposite - although I'm a type-A worrier, I tend to think of myself as generally cheerful. I don't like to dwell on unpleasant things, it seems like a waster of time - I'd rather look ahead to the next good thing. But where is the line between the cheerfulness and uncaring? How can I not know that?

There are still moments of "wrongness" - walking the dogs and feeling like I should also be pushing a stroller, realizing my pants don't quite fit yet and being hit with the oddness of baby weight but no baby, getting into a minivan that was bought to fit two children instead of one. I am still not sleeping well, and I find myself fighting feelings of over-concern for Shea on occasion. But that feeling of unbearable sadness, of I can't stop crying, of feeling like things will never be better, has lifted.

It's like that period after your wisdom teeth have been removed, when everything is healed, and you keep probing the space with your tongue, surprised to feel no pain.

So I probe. I flipped through Harper's memory book today and, for the first time, it didn't make me cry. It made me smile, the way Shea's baby pictures make me smile. Because she was an adorable baby -   I don't think that just mommy bias!  - and the thought of her makes me smile.

(Typing that made me cry a little, so maybe that's better?)

Today is the 17th day. Harper has been gone as long as she was alive. I can type that calmly. Maybe because it is so hard to grasp the truth of that statement?

I don't know. I feel like I need an instruction book to how to properly grieve my child - me, who rejected the idea of parenting books, find mourning to be the most confusing part of parenthood I've ever experienced.

What if life really does just go on? What if I really just do go on living my life? What if I'm never on the floor sobbing about Harper again? That scares me, makes me feel like a monster who could just move on without her heart breaking every moment for the child I've lost.

Sigh. Harper bean, although I didn't realize it at the time, life was easier when my only job was to hold you in the NICU.