When I had my first baby, I knew nothing of the capacity for grief that love and parenting would bring with it. I was blissfully ignorant. And also just plain ignorant at the same time. I knew nothing of parenting, either. All I knew was from the moment I saw those two pink lines, I loved the tiny person who had caused them.
In that moment, I knew there was a tiny person there, developing. Not a mass of cells, but a person. A tiny, tiny human who would grow and stretch me, expand me and my universe in ways I couldn’t even imagine.
I would come to learn that the most beautiful thing about the way she would grow and stretch me was this — I did not have to choose her over anyone else. She created her own space. Or rather, God created it for her and she grew to fill it and to grow it and to fill it again. I didn’t really know this then as well as I know it now and I do not really know it as well now as I will later. I’m always growing in my knowledge of this parenting thing and it is always growing me.
I love that I did not have to choose my child over anyone else. When I opened my heart to love her, I didn’t have to cast another person out to create space. When she was born I didn’t have to choose someone else’s birthday to discontinue celebrating. I grew to be able to accommodate her. And it was the same with each of my subsequent children.
When my second daughter was born, I did not stop celebrating my first daughter’s birthday. Nor did I stop celebrating either of my 2 girls when my 3rd was born. I did not stop loving any of them when I started grieving my first loss. I did not stop grieving baby o or loving my girls when my first rainbow was born. Nor did my love for any of my children — living or dead — decrease by any amount with my next 3 losses. Or with the grief those losses brought. Or with the birth of my rainbow boy.
The love I feel continues to grow, whether it is shown in the look on my face when I watch my children dance or the tears that fall when I grieve my lost babies and the fact that I’ll never see them dance. It is all love.
I don’t have to choose. I’m not loving any of my children any less whether I’m celebrate the birthday of one of my living children or commemorating the anniversary of my child’s funeral.
It is all love and the love of one does not diminish the love of the others. God created a special spot in my heart for each of them — a spot that grows as they grow and as my love for them grows. A place that expands to hold limitless love for my tiny humans, loves so limitless they can stretch all the way to heaven, if needed.
Today is a special day for Maggie. It was her due date that then became her funeral date — a day to celebrate her and begin the process of letting her go.
Today, it strikes me that this parenting thing is so much about learning to let go and she is just teaching me about letting go in a different way than my other kids have. I had to let her go differently. I had to let her go physically and forever. And I suck at it.
I’m still trying to learn how to let her go. I haven’t learned it yet. I still call her back every day with my heart.
And that’s ok. Because I love her, my heart calls out to her. And I can love her like this every day without taking away from my other kids at all. Because I don’t have to choose. I can love them all in different ways at the same time.
I don’t have to choose. And that’s beautiful. I can love them all. And that’s good because I can’t help it. I can’t stop it. It just springs from me, whether I want it to or not.
I don’t have to choose. And today, I thank God that I don’t have to choose. I can be sad about the anniversary of my daughter’s funeral and happy to sit here and watch a movie with my living kids at the same time. I love knowing that both are expressions of my love and I love that I don’t have to choose one over the other.
Today I celebrate not having to choose.
Grieving and not choosing on. . . And doing it all in love.
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