It's true as anything I know. Because being babylost means having to resolve the mindbending gap of alive and dead, and that work is never finished. Which somehow makes the doom both real and illusory, but never strictly bullshit. Out of all the reams of grief lit thrust my way, the only thing I read that really hit home was about "the myth of acceptance", which stated that acceptance is not an expected stage of losing your own offspring because it is too devastating. It is beyond the beyonds. Hence, The Ride.
My daughter Thisbe lived 41 hours and for the rest of my life, the ride will take me transcendentally high when I can somehow love her fully - no matter where she is - and furiously, dreadfully low into the bottomless hole of her absence. Both real, so real.
Someone suggested to me that experiencing "the worst" is proof that, having survived it, I really don't need to fear anything ever again. Nope, I can't take that bet (and had a lesser person said it to me...I might have tried to hurt them). Like you, I have to embrace what I can with all the courage I can scrape together at the moment, but the only thing that makes love and joy beautiful now is allowing myself to feel them while not letting myself forget the other side of the coin is merely facing away.
And I tell myself lots of things on the days I attempt to hold myself up, but today it's these:
1) Matter is neither created nor destroyed, and "that mystery [she] hast leapt across" separates us, but does not undo her existence. She's real. So my job as her mother is still to love her, love her anyway.
2) I should try to seek resilience rather than happiness (but I'm not there, not even trying yet). It just seems like the only answer to surviving the ride.
3) Nothing but Thisbe's loss has, or would have ever, illuminated the depth I now see in my husband and my son (we had one miscarriage before the latter came along, and I want to acknowledge that not having a living one to let the pressure off your grief and longing probably puts me on an altogther different ride, and I wish you and your wife the most golden luck in the world for future children who will outlive you in a robust blaze of happiness). This is something I can do because of Thisbe's love: quit rhapsodizing - somewhat hypocritically - about her, and love my living family way,way better than I have.
4) I would never ever trivialize Thisbe's loss to a purpose, a "here's why" (I am not a believer in plans and certainly never god's plan). Sometimes aching shuts me down and sometimes it makes me act and I try to welcome both as states in which I can be better at keeping Thisbe a part of me for life.
5) I always feel better when I shower.
It's been 9 weeks since Thisbe died, I have to keep reminding myself of this, because I am usually certain it's been 200 years. I'm mentioning this now because a voice tells me to shut it, I'm probably still just in denial. Also, I tried to post this yesterday when there were just 3 comments, but I had pc trouble, so I apologize for posting it now without reading all of the comments first. I will come back to them when I am up to it.
belief in some form of afterlife but also negative example of code 4 in rejection of religious reasons