Does being pregnant make grieving easier?
To this question I would answer, no.
What being pregnant does make easier is knowing what I might do with my life in the near future. It gives me a plan and a focus for continuing to prepare to be the best mother that I can be. It gives me new direction. It gives me hope that we can have a family here on earth—in this life. It gives me an undeniable sense of gratitude to the Lord for allowing what I hope and dream for—to live my life as a mother—to be a part of my life.
But it doesn't take away my longing for my son. It doesn't remove him from my thoughts. It doesn't take away the emptiness in my heart that waits to be filled with a relationship with my son, Luke. It doesn't push out the overwhelming love I have for my son.
My friend's mother lost one of her twins to SIDS many years ago. At the funeral someone made a thoughtless comment along the lines of "at least she still has one." How foolish to think one child would compensate for the loss of another! Like I think I've said before, children are not just one in a set of dishes that can be replaced. Each child is an individual. Each child has a place in my heart that could never be replaced by the love that I have for another one of my children.
So no, being pregnant does not change how I grieve my son's life which I will always wish could occur here and now with us, but it does give me hope for a life as a mother in the near future and there is most definitely joy in that.
I am so happy for you, Shelley! I know what you mean, my next pregnancy won't exactly make up for/replace the my first which ended sadly, but I will get the chance to be a mother and that means a great deal to me.
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you expressed the difference between the ways it helps and what it doesn't change.
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