Unexpected Part 2

So the unexpected part of grief is ridiculous. You don’t know when it will hit you. You don’t know what to expect. You go along your day and get blindsided and can be down for the count. But for the first time ever my grief took on totally unexpected feeling.

Easter I knew would be hard. I can expect those big days to be challenging. Easter represents the last holiday we physically had with our Melina. My heart just hurts. I’m tired of only having memories. I want new days and new adventures. I don’t want remember when….to be forever.

So I struggled on Easter. I didn’t feel good. I didn’t want to be anywhere. I wanted to be at home in my safe place. But I went to Easter brunch because I couldn’t sit alone. I didn’t want people. Yet I needed my people. So I sat at the brunch making new memories but internally only longing for the old.

I tried to be in the moment. But on these days, the days that I expect my grief to be hard, I know I focus on the tough days ahead. What May and June will mean to us. My heart and head are just in all the pain. So as I sat at the table we were talking about Klara and Emmie. We were laughing at my niece, Cammy, and their differences. And then I said it. “Oh my gosh I can totally see Melina sitting there with perfect posture” Everyone laughed as we compared them. And I stopped. I smiled with tears in my eyes. Totally unexpected in my mountain of grief I saw her. I haven’t been able to picture my Melina as clearly as I saw her in that moment since she died. Oh those ridiculous curls and her personality. But there it was in an unexpected flash. A flash that all I could do was hold on to. In that flash I closed my eyes and saw my perfectly healthy baby girl. In one unexpected flash my grief for the moment slowed. I have never experienced this before. My brain has never allowed me to see my Melina in our present state.

I continue to learn on this path of grief. I don’t want to be on this path. And I didn’t choose to be on this path. But I do choose everyday how I will respond to it. I am learning and truly starting to believe that grief while it can destroy me, the unexpected moments aren’t always bad. Truly grief is love with no where to go. And I am starting to see that sometimes unexpectedly that love wins. I will grasp for those moments and I will hold on tight to that love. Because that is Melina, love, smiles, and laughs … that is Joy.