though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

I thought today might be the day that I didn’t cry in the shower but it wasn’t. I thought today might be a day where I felt like I had a somewhat firm footing in the world, where it might not seem like everything was slipping away from me but it isn’t. It’s hard to write in the blog because in order to do so I must go to the page that shows me both blogs which I manage. I have to look at the words “Little Bunny”. I have to think about mustering the strength to change the blog I made for both my daughters back to the blog for my remaining daughter. It’s hard to write in the blog, too, because my last entry was about death and the loss of good people and I had no idea how much more personal that would all be for me today. I have written a number of things in a vim window and I just don’t know if I can bring myself to put them here. This may seem strange to people who have read my account of Simone’s death on SlithyToves but I’m not sure I can tolerate giving people a view inside my head right now. I can hardly tolerate being inside my head.

It all comes back to this : I didn’t want her to go.

There are a few notable things I am taking with me from the past two weeks of life, and I thought I might list them here:

• People are kinder than you think. Support for my husband and I and for Sophia has sprung up from nowhere. The unlikeliest people have given us solace, and too many to name have offered us comfort. In fact, I find the list of acknowledgements and thank yous I must write almost overwhelming. I am so thankful both for humanity in the abstract and my place as part of it and for the specific people who are just striving to be their best selves and to be good to others who need it. We have needed such goodness in ways I had never dreamed we would and the people to provide it have materialized at every turn. We would neither of us be standing today if it weren’t for all the prayers and well-wishes and good thoughts from friends and strangers alike.
  
• Deep and true grief is physical. I have felt, in the last week, not just emotionally wretched and mentally fatigued, but physically ill. I never knew that my stomach and my feelings were so intrinsically linked. I am still struggling with both the physical and emotional aftermaths of the road I’m on. I don’t know how long it will be before I am ok again.
  
• You never know where people have been and what they have suffered. I have been astonished at the number of people who have lost children and have reached out to us. In many cases people have talked to us about miscarriages that really shattered them. It seems to me that it is harder to carry the grief alone, because in those cases people might not even know you are pregnant and so cannot fathom your loss. I have been very public about my grief, mostly because I cannot help myself and I have no idea what else to do. However, in other places and circumstances people bear enormous burdens of mourning alone. You cannot know from how they look or how they act where they have been. People thanked me for what I have written because it resonates with them. Whether they experienced something like it or not, they understand and commiserate. This reinforces to me that there is a kinship in humanity. I hope I can strive to be more compassionate to people, to be cognizant of their inevitable suffering and to ameliorate such when and where I can.
  
• Cremation is absolutely the way to go. I have never had to deal with taking care of a corpse before. When my grandparents died, that responsibility fell to other people and all I had to do was be present at funerals. I have discovered that, for me, a corpse has no real religious or spiritual importance. It is a shell of a being. Cremation is inexpensive and has given me an appropriate sense of closure. I cannot see myself revisiting a gravesite, and I actually have a fondness for cemeteries that most people probably don’t.
  
• There are always more tears than you think you can cry.
  

My mind is still not as focused as I’d like it to be. I’m tired and my thoughts separate and thread away from each other and many things fail to make sense to me. So I know my list is shorter than I intended. Perhaps this is a topic I will revisit again at some point, perhaps not.