Life Goes On

I think that's the hardest lesson Mo and I have had to learn over the last three years.

Even when you wish it wouldn't, even when you can't fathom it being possible, life does, indeed, go on.

It goes on despite deaths, and births, and devastating diagnoses.  It goes on despite the pain, despite the sorrow, despite the desire to curl up in bed for days on end.  Life goes on.

And so, when my sister texted me on September 2nd and asked me how I was feeling, I shouldn't have been surprised when it took me a moment to realize what she was referring to.

One year has passed since I first didn't get to bring my baby home with me.  Had our first pregnancy worked out, my child would be turning one.  And I almost forgot.

How is that even possible?  I feel like the worst mother alive -- and I'm not even technically a mother.  But how, HOW, could I forget, for even a moment?  How could I not remember ever second of every day that life that grew inside of me?  How could that experience -- and the next loss six months later -- disappear from the forefront of my mind?  

It did because life goes on, and the pain that was so excruciating a year ago, has faded.  It hasn't disappeared, but its no longer the blazing hole in my heart that it once was.  No one wants to hear it while in the throes of grief (myself included),  but there's a reason that it's a cliche: time does, indeed, if not heal all wounds, at least allow them to scab over.

Life goes on, whether we want it to or not, whether we think we can survive it or not.  We continue to breathe in, breathe out, to put one foot in front of the other.  We do it because we have to, but it could hardly be said that we enjoy it.  We endure, until one day we realize that it doesn't hurt quite so much.  We learn to smile again, to laugh without feeling guilty.  We return to our everyday, mundane activities.  We go to work, we cook dinner.  Slowly -- oh, so slowly -- we learn how to live again.

Because life goes on, even in the shadow of death.  And while I'm not sure of a whole helluva lot else, I am sure of this: life will continue to go on long after me, and Mo, and all of our trials and tribulations are long gone.  Life will go on -- whether we're able to create it or not.

And for some reason I can't quite articulate, I find that strangely comforting.