Learning to Live With Grief

I had prayed for over 20 years for a little sister for my son, for a daughter with whom I could do all the things little girls dream of one day doing with their daughters. When God gifted me with my daughter 21 years after my son was born, I felt truly blessed.

She was everything I'd ever dreamed about, my mini-me. Along with my stepson, we joined our local homeschool group. I spent the next two years focused solely on my daughter and stepson. When she was two, I took a part-time job outside our home. I loved my job, but I hated being away from my children.

Then 5 weeks before her third birthday, tragedy struck.

The kids and I had run errands that morning and had a wonderful time doing so. On the way home, we went through the Dairy Queen drive-thru. I ordered my stepson what he wanted, then I asked my daughter what flavor milkshake she wanted - "Pink!"

As we drove to the babysitter's home from there, we sang along with the radio. We were having such a good day. I took her to our babysitter, a wonderful young mom I had carefully watched with her own children at church before asking her to babysit for us.

My stepson went with me to work. A few hours later, we got a phone call that there had been an accident. At the hospital, I was told that she was gone. The bottom was completely gone from our world.

That was more than six years ago. I spent the first six years burying my own grief as I tried to help others deal with theirs and tried to keep things going. I did the "responsible mom" thing, taking care of everyone else, burying my own grief, and building resentment toward people whom I felt were demanding so much from me that I couldn't process my own emotions.

My younger daughter joined our family a year after the accident. She has been my raison d'être, my reason to continue, and my reason to heal. She is my blessing, my gift from God and from our angel.

The grief is still there, but I am finding new strength each day to live with it, new ways to live, new ways to deal with the challenges of life. When things are hardest, a song from the old Kris Kringle Christmas clay-mation goes through my mind - "Put one foot in front of the other, and soon you'll be walking 'cross the floor. Put one foot in front of the other, and soon you'll be walking out the door."

No matter how hard life gets, no matter how many people tell me to "just get over it," no matter how many people tell me to "move on" - no matter. I am recreating life on my own terms. The people who want things to be like they were in the past will be disappointed. The ones who want me to go back to who I was then may not like the new me.

But this is the me who has lived through hell, who has lost everything, and with God's help is still here. God is making me stronger, giving me the strength to live with the past, to daily walk with the grief, and to make a life with my youngest that will be beautiful for the two of us.

When life takes everything away from you, when the rug is pulled completely from under your feet - don't give up. Grieve. Cry. But never stop putting one foot in front of the other. Learn to live alongside your grief and to have happiness join your grief. Walk with both, hand-in-hand, as you rebuild your life - on your terms.