I Might Not Have Anything Else to Write About

It's been 18 months since Kamila vanished. I swear that just a couple months ago, I was thinking that I might not have anything else to write about on my grief because of how good I was feeling. It's remarkable to me that I can feel so normal for a while, and then have the ground beneath my feet crack open. Sometimes I seep through it slowly, other times I fall through it hard with a thump.

Lately, I have been in such a good place. I stopped smoking, I've been cooking and keeping on top of things. Ski school, dance class, gymnastics with my little one, and chauffeur for my teenager. Lunches, laundry, social time, hikes, downtime - it's almost like it didn't happen. She's not dead, and I'm slaying life. Of course I am very well aware of the fact that she's gone. It's more that I can't feel my grief in those moments...I don't think I imagined a time where I would ever articulate those words: I can't feel my grief.

I once attended a training on complex grief as a therapist and yet-to-be grieving mother. The presenter said something that I truly understand now that I grieve Kamila. She said that over time, and in no predictable fashion, the waves get further apart, but they can hit just as hard. She was right. After 18 months, the waves I move through are further apart, but they take me out at the knees just as aggressively...even if only for 20 minutes.

For anyone who has had the luxury of seeing me go through a wave, I imagine that I look like a woman in active labour with her stillborn child. My body heaves and contracts. My legs shake and swing back and forward in a rocking motion. Just like a mother in the pushing phase of childbirth, I hold my breath as though bearing down, wincing my face in visible, palpable pain. Sometimes I have someone to hold me, reminding me to breathe. Other times I silently scream at myself to come up for air. When my breath breaks the silence it is laboured...and loud.

Anger has been more present lately. I have felt angry that she doesn't get to graduate with her girls this spring at Queen's. Pissed that she didn't get to do her semester in Australia... or that I don't get to know what happens next in her full, exciting, beautiful life. I have kicked the coffee table, thrown pillows, and tried to rip my pillowcase with the sheer force of my hands. Other times it's just pure pain and sadness, no anger to be found. Physical pain in my chest, heart, throat, and face.

The fact that the waves are getting further apart is a desperately welcomed reprieve. I say this, knowing very well, that I will never be completely out of the woods from grief that makes every inch of my being ache. But over time I have learned how to rise back up through the crack that swallowed me whole. At times I pick up a book, or watch an episode. Lately it's been This is Us, but Pretty Hard Cases got me through Christmas Day. Naps are the best reset. Perhaps nothing is more comforting than being held in silence.

I find myself being moved by my resilience and ability to bounce back. That I choose and remember to reconnect with my beautiful life again. I think it's fair to say that I won't run out of things to write about on this topic. My grief is evolving and changing, and I am pretty sure that I will be in a life-long apprenticeship with it.