I am exhausted. In counseling we talked about how I have simply felt too busy to grieve. Then I am so scared to allow myself to go there… because it will consume me.. And I worry I won’t recover from it well enough to get the things done that I need to.
I love being part of Unravel. I love everything I get to do within it..
Bridgette is getting to do some traveling she will never remember
But I am exhausted.. and I realized today I think its stuffing down that grief that is doing it to me. A bone tired weariness.
I miss her. Jennifer.
So much. I yearn for her right now. To just hear her voice. To feel her touch.
I miss her. Jennifer.
Being around people I try to be the old me. Silly and funny… Not the woman nobody wants to invite to a birthday party. The one that goes off to feed her baby and silent tears fall.. Because I have hit my capacity. I can’t stuff it down anymore .. so it’s sneaking out of me..Refusing to be contained.
This time of year. It brings it all back to me. When she was here and alive. For some reason that I still don’t understand.. Its her short time with cancer that feels real. That I can most get close to her.
Her first real appointment after diagnosis. I remember this moment this time with clarity.
Because still.. her healthy and whole… It feels like a distance fantasy. A mirage of a girl that never really was.
I miss her. Jennifer.
My heart hurts so much. I can’t even focus on my thoughts right now to get any order to them. I just hurt.
I ache.
I yearn.
I just want my daughter back. And I am scared. How much this hurts. I feel like I am continually losing her.. Over and over again.
all dressed up for the nutcracker
will this ever get easier? is it and i just don’t realize it?
There is no guidebook and I feel like I am failing at navigating year two. I am pushing to be better.. To find some healing.. I don’t know how to find the balance between allowing myself to miss her and pushing ahead. It seems I can only do one at a time and which ever one I am doing, its full throttle.
Right now it is consuming me. My pain. She is gone. My daughter. Forever 6. Minutes passing in a flood of tears.. emptying me from the inside out.
I miss her. Jennifer.
But with this emptiness I can breath. For the first time in two weeks. I can breath.
i miss you
jennifer.
mommy misses you.
..until there is a cure..
I miss my girl too. I understand and I’m sorry.
My prayers are for ever with you and your beautiful family, GB
I think the holidays will always be hard.Coming up on my third ones without my Kylie and I miss her deeply.It doesn’t get easier the aching for them but in my experience I just don’t break down so often as I did at the beginning.I am sure it must be a little harder for you because you are submerged in it daily with unravel.I sadly just have to not think about my loss because as soon as I do its hard to come out of the sadness I feel.You are not alone with these feelings.
Sending all the love I can give. ♡♡♡♡♡♡ We love you Jennifer. ♡
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Sending you a big hug. xoxo
Absolutely Heartbreaking ?. No words- just prayers- LOVE4JLK
F you, cancer!!!!!
Sending love.
Libby, my heart goes out to you and know you are not alone. Sunday was the one month anniversary of losing my Maddie, forever 6 too. You describe so beautifully exactly how I’m feeling. There is this elephant standing on my chest and he won’t go away. I’m so consumed with anger, I fear it’s the only thing holding me up. I don’t want to let it go. I miss her so much. I’m angry that I have to live the rest of my life without her. I’m angry she didn’t get to live a full life. I hurt for every child that has been diagnosed with this horrible cancer.
To all of you hurting, I pray for some fresh air to breathe. I pray for the strength you need now and in the future…until there is a cure..
The second year can be so difficult! Whatever support you had during the first year tends to fade as people get back to life. Even though they care, the loss usually does not affect them on a daily basis. So we continue to grieve while feeling less supported and more isolated. And we struggle with the idea that we should be able to move on contrasted with grief because a part of us is no longer here. I understand your desire to live; that’s where I am right now–almost six years later. But take the time you need to grieve. She matters.
Thinking of you tonight, wishing you peace and gentleness with yourself as you take this day by day.
I’m so sorry you are hurting so badly right now. I think you are right, stuffing grief is exhausting. I wish that you could have some space to just let go and let out these tears that are just beneath the surface. I know you have to be a Mom to all your living children right now, but part of being Jennifer’s Mom is grieving and feeling these brutal emotions. I just wish I could somehow create the space and time you need to let it all out.
I think the 2nd year is way harder than the first for bereavement. I always have. Personally and professionally I have seen it over and over again. I think in the first year we are still in shock and our brain plays tricks on us and tells us that our loved one is just not there that year. They are away or couldn’t “make it” for Christmas. But then the 2nd year comes and they are still not there, the 2nd birthday, the 2nd Thanksgiving…and our brains struggle to lie to us in a way that we can still believe. We are realizing with every part of our being that they are truly gone.
My Dad died a few days before Jennifer. We are on a similar grief timeline. This time of year nearly kills me…it starts with Thanksgiving and then I feel like I slip and slide my way to his death anniversary, and by the time I crawl out of that hold it’s his birthday, then my birthday, then i relive his diagnosis (for his 5th type of cancer) and the timeline of that treatment and how this time it was terminal…there was never any hope with diagnosis #5. It was bad from the start, like DIPG but it was not a brain tumour.
Watching someone you love (or one of the ones you love) the most in this world is an agonizing experience that no one understands until they have lived it. All the people who don’t get it and make crappy comments or are insensitive to you, most of them will get it one day when it happens to them. But very few of those people will know the pain of losing their child, which is unlike any other pain in this world. What you are dealing with is really, really brutally difficult and it is going to be hard for a really long time. It will ease up in some ways because you will get used to it, even though you are probably saying “no I will never get used to missing Jennifer”. You will. We find ways to adapt over time because that is what the human body and spirit are built for. It will come in time, honest. It’s still so new and you are shell shocked and trying to hold so many moving parts of a complex system together.
Go easy on yourself. If you have made it through another day and your kids are well cared for, happy and safe, and you and Tony are in one piece, that is a huge victory.
I’m just so sorry you have to go through this. It’s just not fair. JENNIFER LYNN deserved so much more out of this life, and so do all of you. I wish I had the right words to make things easier, I don’t. I just speak from my heart and my experience, never even expecting my comments to be posted. I just want you to know you are not alone, and people are reading and sharing in your grief as much as they are able.
Take care, Libby, very good, gentle care of yourself, please.