2.18.2022
Kyle and I have been together for 11 years. Woah. At 29 years old, going on 30 that’s really cool to think about. In this hurt that I’m sitting in, i find myself sad looking back on “simpler” times when we first met at 17, began dating at 18, engaged at 20 and married at 22. Our biggest concern was finances, we were so.freaking.poor. Like lay in bed and cry together because we could not see a light at the end of this financial tunnel. Would i rather go back to those times than my current season? I think I’d long for the younger days where my biggest worry was money….but obviously knowing that we’re ok now. Hindsight is 20/20. I catch myself wishing to go back to those days for a way to just escape the days I’m living in now. But ugh, that lingering question that has been haunting me lately…..Would I change anything?
And i think i struggle with that on a faith level more than anything. Would I change what God allowed, God’s will on my life, his plan for me? That then dives into such a theological question of whether i believe in God having full control and allowing us free will, or if he is not in full control by allowing us free will? These are the thoughts that i think about after a 3am feed with Xavier. HA. My brain is on steroids obviously.
Am I getting comfortable on this blog? Is my main goal to best portray what grief is like being overshadowed by my “too casual” dialect and demeanor? I sure hope not yet isn’t the point of this blog to be raw, authentic and truthful?
I’m being called to attempt to write for other platforms. This idea wasn’t on my heart earlier and the Lord has been telling me that its time to begin that route. However, I’m not a writer. Hahaha ok obviously I’m writing yes, but I’m not a cordial, professional writer. This blog...its my open, random, sporadic thoughts,..its my open heart. A little different from a more neat and clean approach required for other blogs. So yeah, watch me fail at that.
2.19.2022
Today I had an epiphany. For myself an epiphany but as i explain it you will most likely be like “uh yeah gab, duh.”.
I have been hyper aware of the statistics of married couples getting divorced after losing a child. To a point, losing a child together does implode your marriage. From the moment of loss, we are experiencing such hurt together but also individually. We begin to cope differently. We are both changing into completely different people at an alarming rate. Yet, we are fighting about the same habitual topics we were before losing Alba. We bicker about the same nonsense and drag on arguments about the same issues. This entire time I sat here with a heavy focus on how we were managing our grief together and separately. Grief was bound to try to tear us apart. The way we coped differently would break us. The way we changed throughout this hurt would break us. The way we treated each other because we were completely lost without Alba, that for sure ought to be breaking us. But today, with all transparency, as Kyle and I are having a big argument over the same topic we have had arguments about since becoming overwhelmed parents, I realized a big truth. Maybe not even truth but at least an exposure of a huge lie the enemy had me believing for so long. I thought the actual loss of Alba would be what could break us. But its strangely even deeper and more complex than that. I carried tunnel vision on an of course huge trauma in our marriage but i had blinders on every other aspect of my marriage. Let me better explain. The loss and grief of Alba has put a huge enormous weak spot in our marriage. Imagine a phone book, (my gen z’s may need to google that but hang with me), you can’t tear a phone phone, its too strong. But now drop bits of water in the center of this phone book. The water on paper will slowly break it down, weakening the once strong phone book into eventually a weak and flimsy clump of papers that tear on their own. You see? This is what grief does to an unaware marriage. Grief has put such a weakness in my marriage that arguments that were definitely issues before but weren’t breaking us are now coming up and bringing with it a heaviness of “but will it?”. Now really read this clearly when i say that Kyle and I are good. Luckily for Kyle, he has a super emotionally aware wife who the Holy Spirit likes to gently (but somewhat aggressively, I can have selective hearing at times) correct and bring truth to. Tonight the Holy Spirit put me in my place. Ive shown narrow mindedness in thinking that I ought to put my full focus on making sure the actual grief of losing Alba didn’t break us. I was naive in not realizing that grief, like a virus, would rampantly spread across every other area of my marriage looking for any weakness spots to target. Grief likes hurt, and pain and crying. Grief will latch onto more than just the loss that it rode in on. It will jump onto every other hurt in your life and emphasize it, forcing you to acknowledge it even if you’re internally dying from the actually trauma you’re facing. I hope that makes sense. In the best way i can possibly explain i guess.
Are Kyle and I doing ok? Yes. Are we also struggling though? Yes. But not in a normal marriage struggle. This mega weak spot didn’t come into our marriage out of any doing by us and that is frustrating and exhausting to deal with. Knowing that we didn’t bring these issues on ourselves yet are still having to work through them. The aftermath of losing a child…..I should bring that up but another time maybe. I’m tired of typing tonight.
*thank you Kyle for always being so supportive in me sharing such raw real moments of our lives and marriage through the biggest hurt of our entire lives. I love you.*