The Infinite Ache

Lizzy was alive for two years. She has now been gone for two months. I do not know how convinced I am by the term “stages of grief.” My experience of grief vacillates between uncontrollable sobbing, numb desolation, acute and tearing despair, and a sort of manic and cowardly avoidance.

I am getting better at hiding these feelings from those immediately surrounding me, mostly for their sake. It has gotten to the point where enduring my pain and grief on a daily basis is too much and too overwhelming for my support system. And so to love them and thank them for everything they have done to carry me this far (and are still doing), I am hiding much of what I feel from them.

Because, when it comes to Lizzy, there is no “getting better.” There is no getting over it. No closure. No moving on. All of these terms are not only repulsive and offensive, but they are grossly inaccurate. And impossible.

I think about Lizzy constantly. She is on my mind at every turn. Although I am responding to my environment and to those things immediately in front of me; like a compass, any thought I have turns to Lizzy.

This is not a conscious process; it is simply a product of the reality I once lived in. It is simply being a mother. Lizzy was so intimately a part of everything that I did, that now, when I do things without her, they feel meaningless. And deeper, I feel that grief amplifies this, because even thoughts that have nothing to do with her end up thinking about her.

How many times a day do I think, “Lizzy will never get to…” or “She died before we got to do…”? Countless. It doesn’t stop. And it is involuntary. As a result, it keeps the grief close. Similarly, it keeps Lizzy close.

And that’s the thing about grief that is so piercingly terrible: it is now horrible to think about Lizzy or to face the reality of her death and the countless myriad implications it has on my life, and it is made more horrible because Lizzy is the furthest thing from horrible. Lizzy was my precious, adorable, so loved and loving toddler, who brought endless joy, light, and meaning to my life. Now, she is the source of unbelievable and unbearable pain. But she is also the beautiful, so loved daughter around whom my world revolved. She is now both, and because she is both, there is a sort of mental dismay, denial, rejection, and disbelief that accompanies every thought about Lizzy. For, how do you hold that which you love the most to also be the source of such great and crippling pain?

As a result, I find myself running from memories, thoughts, and pictures of Lizzy. This is when I am a coward. I did this a lot today, and as a result, lived most of the day in the numb desolation. And yet, I thought about Lizzy constantly, even though I was running from thoughts of her. My mind cannot accept that Lizzy no longer needs anything from me–that everything that I do is no longer relevant to Lizzy. On the other hand, everything that I do is not only very immediate but very relevant to Cecilia. And so I do these things, almost on autopilot. But I have to hold the two side by side in my head with every choice, every action: “Why does this matter? Lizzy is dead.” Followed by: “I am doing this for Cecilia.” Both are equally strong, and both pull me in different directions.

It is exhausting.

In her book, First You Die, Marie Levine says that after nearly a decade of grieving her son, she arrived at a mental place where she felt she needed to live life to the best of her ability since she needed to live it for two people: herself and her dead son. I am certainly not at this place yet, but this thought keeps crossing through my mind. One day, will I get to the point where I feel that I have an obligation to live as fully as possible so that I can live for Lizzy even though living for Lizzy feels totally counter-intuitive right now? It’s a nice thought. Whatever “nice” means on my new scale as a bereaved parent, I guess.

In the meantime, I look for small moments and movements that inch me towards some sort of positive feeling. In two days, Cecilia will be exactly four weeks old. This evening, I sat on a park bench in the middle of town, nursing her under a cover, and watching the sun set over the water.

The sunset was beautiful over the calm water and the breeze touching my skin was balmy. It was one of those moments when you feel so happy to be alive.

But tonight, I didn’t feel happy to be alive. I felt Lizzy. I felt Lizzy in the breeze against my skin. I felt her in the shades of pink streaking the sky with light. I felt Lizzy in the sound of the water lapping against the rocks. And I felt Lizzy in the sweet, needing mouth of Cecilia at my breast.

Lizzy is all around me. And whether this is a psychological phenomenon or a spiritual reality, it doesn’t really matter. She is so deeply present because she is present in me, constantly. She is present in Cecilia. And I feel her present whenever I see or feel something good or beautiful.

I think this is because Lizzy was so good, so beautiful, and so loved, that even death cannot divorce her from participating and being present in anything that is good, beautiful, or love. I see her in nature because of how she loved the natural world. I see her in me because of how I loved her. And I see her in Cecilia because Cecilia is pure need and pure love right now.

And so I feel I spent this sunset with both my daughters, although one is gone from this world. Lizzy is here because she is in every breath that I take and nearly every thought that I have. I yearn towards her like I yearn towards the beauty of a sunset precisely because of how beautiful she is. I cannot control this. She is inside of me and inside of the sun. She is everywhere. And I need her to be.

Because the need I have for Lizzy is immeasurable and unending. And the ache is infinite.