This week is a big one, for some obvious reasons, and for some surprise reasons as well. Aside from this week being the big “Great American Eclipse,” in my own town, as well as my niece’s 7th birthday, this week marks one year since my sons left me to live in heaven. One year of a life I never imagined I’d have to live.
A lot has happened in that year. A lot of grieving, and living in a haze. Those first few months were a blur of trying to put one foot in front of the other as I re-learned how to live.
These last few months, though, have been a different battle.
After my miscarriage this spring, I was hit really hard with PPD (PostPartum Depression.) It wasn’t new, it was just much worse because of my loss of hope in a new pregnancy. The struggles I faced were unlike anything I’d imagined. Things as vital and simple as my will to live were stripped from me, and only through the immense blessing of an attentive and loving husband was I able to make it through those light-less weeks. Because of him, I was able to humble myself enough to seek real help for the problems I’d been facing. And although I am not without bad days still, I am finally seeing the light in my life again. And I’m loving it.
In a lot of ways, I am happier now than I have ever been. Don’t read into that wrong and think I’m saying the losses I’ve been through haven’t been devastating, because they have. I wouldn’t wish these things on my worst enemy. However, through these trials I truly believe my relationship with my husband has been strengthened and we have been able to pull each other though better than we ever could have without one another. There have been countless turning points where our relationship could have taken a dive for the worst, especially though this debilitating depression. There are times I look back and wonder HOW my husband was able to be so loving and patient to the shadow of a wife I had been.
But he did. And the place we are at now is a place I hope we can push ourselves to be at all the time. He changes my life for the better every single day. Like today. Today, I didn’t think I’d be able to do life. As I sat in bed, not feeling up to the task of moving, Warren texted me asking if I’d be willing to make him lunch today. That was all it took to get me moving.
Today began as many of my “not-so-good” days do, and I wondered what I was going to be able to accomplish today. I woke up, not feeling up to the day, but got up anyway and after my prayer, went downstairs to take my morning vitamins with some tea. Afterward I went upstairs to get dressed so I could tackle this lunch.
This is when I strayed from my norm. Instead of getting out one of my many (MANY,) comfortable pairs of LuLaRoe Legging to wear, I got out one of my old favorite pairs of slacks. They’re black with uniform white polkadots on them and I have not been able to squeeze into them since just after my wedding day. This morning, on a whim, I took them out and slipped into them. After doing up the button and zipper I stood there in front of my closet for a minute, astonished. They fit. The one pair of famously teeny-tiny pants I owned fit me un-like they had for almost two years now. That could only mean one thing.
I hurried into my bathroom and stepped onto my scale. And there, on my cheap and nearly broken scale sat the reading I thought I would never see again. My pregnancy weight. Here I am, a year after loosing my perfect angels, and I have finally gotten my body back to what it was before.
I mean, of course it will never be completely the same. I still have my “tiger stripes” that cover a good portion of my middle. I still have grieving to navigate and a life without my twin sons to push through. I will forever live with those “what if”s all my life. The fleeting thoughts of how it might have been with them here with me. But, this little thing, loosing the weight I thought I would hold forever, is a little sign to me that I can do this. I can take these lemons I’ve been dished and serve out some really sweet lemonade.
Living Lemonade 