I continue to be surprised by the signs of recognition ingrained deep within my body as I experience these significant anniversaries. With my daughter, there are significant anniversaries all year round. We received her diagnosis in August. Then soon after came the start of the holidays, experienced through the shadows of anticipatory grief. Shortly after New Year’s, she was born. We transitioned home from the NICU, and she entered into hospice care. In March, we shifted to comfort care. In April, she died. In May, we buried her. And then, afterwards…the darkness. The memory of those first putrid summer months after her passing is seared into my bones. Which brings me back to August, and the anniversary of her diagnosis.
This year, the memories of this particular anniversary lurked mostly beneath my subconscious. I didn’t recognize until days later that the terrible, sleep-disturbed night I had that bled into a restless and immensely long workday may have been related to my body’s recollection of that terrible anniversary. Because sleep escaped me, I started work earlier than normal, and then I ended up leaving work earlier than normal, having dinner, and crawling in to bed immediately afterwards. Physically, I felt awful. Emotionally, I somehow didn’t see the correlation with her diagnosis anniversary until afterwards.
It’s interesting; the physical manifestations of grief for me were much more present and overwhelming during those first early months after her death, and even still during those first few years. Now, I am finding myself more easily distracted by the usual stressors of daily life (work, caregiving, household chores, and other family responsibilities), and sometimes those relatively mundane stressors compound and build off each other, resulting in my body’s undeniable and urgent need for rest. But that undercurrent of grief is always present, and I have found that lately, it tends to surge more on already difficult days. This year may be the first year I have had any question about it: did the stress cause my bad day and my surge of grief, or did the anniversary and surge of grief cause my bad day and stress? I expect maybe it was a bit of both.
This year is also one of the first years I feel like I’m actually kind of looking forward to the fall months again. Fall used to be one of my favorite times of year, but after my daughter’s diagnosis, fall lost its luster. I started seeing everything in shades of gray, as opposed to the bright, crisp, beautiful colors of fall. For the past few years, the cooling temperatures and changing leaves only served as a catalyst to bring me physically back in time to the loneliness, anticipatory grief, uncertainty, and isolation that followed her diagnosis. I guess it has taken six years for this to begin to soften in any real and lasting way. I’m grateful to have found some of my love of the season again. I also struggle a bit with this softening. I haven’t forgotten her, and I never will. But allowing for that joy, and that excitement, sometimes feels almost too close to forgetting. I have to remind myself that joy and sorrow can (and shall forevermore) coexist in my life. I can feel the grief, and honor the grief, and honor my daughter’s memory, while still leaving room for joy.
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