When I was in the midst of losing my second pregnancy, I latched onto this blog for so much support and safety...unable to really give it back to others just then. Now, after 5 months, I have found a way to offer my support, excitement and hopefully kind words when I feel shifted by someone's post. I do not have a true need to blog right now. I am sitting, waiting and am frankly bored with the emotions of waiting to have surgery and to try again.
What I have not gotten used to is the loss, the tremendous loss and grief that moves fluidly along many of the blogs I read. I feel intense grief and sadness when I pop open a blog, new or old, and read of one's personal experience and view of the grief they have of a failed cycle or a child gone too soon..... It is especially hard to read a blog for a while and see the grief and loss come back after months....oftentimes harder and more painful. Lately I have been sensing in blogland and other forums that loss is still lurking around and I am finally coming to terms that it will not go away, it just picks someone new to pick on, almost everyday.
I also sense that one's grief and personal experiences are being measured as if there is some way to define how much a loss should be or should not be affecting someone else. No matter how long or hard our battles of trying or losing have been, they are our sad stories.... not someone else's to intellectualize or judge. It saddens me that this happens.
Grief and loss are immeasurable.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The measurement of grief
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12 comments:
I agree, grief and loss are around every corner. It's scary and real and heartbreaking and everywhere.
Very Well Said (typed)
Grief is like a bunny trying to cross the freeway. It zigs and zags in order to stay alive. It does not travel in a straight line.
I thought of you today and will email you with an idea later...
The loss feels overwhelming at times. There really is a feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop, and not just the shoes on our own feet, but the shoes of so many others as well.
Grief is exactly what I feel. My husband will say how much he hates to see me sad, but it is really so much deeper than that. Thanks for the post, well said.
I wish you could measure grief, and maybe take it out behind the shed and shoot it, but that's a different fantasy.
This is a lovely post; thanks for writing it.
I talk a lot about different kinds of heartache - how things must effect people differently - long time IFers, secondary IFers, people suffering through m/c, etc. And no matter how carefully I choose my words and even say I am not measuring pain or trying to compare - as I believe it's all uncomparable and there is no reason to compare - I always get comments from people trying to do that exact thing. I rarely get through a conversation without someone being offended because they are assuming there is some sort of pain level competition going on. Just because I like to explore feelings, doesn't mean I'm comparing.
All of that jumble was to say I totally see the feelings of your post. No matter who is going through it, it's a bag of shit. Doesn't matter how much shit is in the bag.
Man, I hated the waiting for surgery thing. Then waiting to heal. Then waiting in the whole ttc cycle. I know how you feel (having 4 surgeries myself) so I'm sorry. ~hugs~
You said that very well.
Thanks for stopping by my blog and for your kind thoughts and the info about your testing.
Oftentimes I feel like I swing from one extreme to the other- overwhelmed by grief to being extraordinarily practical- what to do, how to do it, can I fix things- and then just collapsing into nothing because I can do a million things and there are still not guarantees.
Your words are so true! It has been over a year since my miscarriage and some days something triggers my grief and it feels like yesterday.
Hi- found you via Antigone's blog. That was well put- grief does seem to be lurking around every corner. It stinks to see so many people hurting this badly.
I like to believe that for as much grief we see in blogland, there is ten times as much happiness that we don't see. Maybe it is human nature to reach out to others, to write, to paint, to create art in whatever way we know best when we are hurting. Not so much when we are happy. When we are happy, we just live our lives.
I like Nancy's analogy of a bag of shit still being a bag of shit regardless of how much shit is in the bag. And I would add to it that shit smells differently, so a larger back of shit may not even smell as bad as a smaller one. And they may smell differently to different people. Sorry, maybe I'm taking this analogy too far.
I have very little to add to this insightful post.
You're absolutely right, Meg - people's individual experiences of grief and loss cannot and should not be measured against some imagined slide rule of suffering.
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