Lucy’s 11th Birthday was last week. If she was here, she’d be in fifth grade right now. We’d be anxiously refreshing our emails, awaiting the school lottery results to know if she would get into the same middle school as her older sibling in the fall.

After eleven years of missing her on her birthdays, and every day in between, I still wonder the same things. What would she look like now? What would her personality be? What would her voice sound like? How would she change the sibling dynamic and fit into our family? What would her interests and talents be? Her favorite color? Would she be friends with my friends’ daughters who are the same age? I could answer all of these questions about my other three kids in a heartbeat because, of course, I know them so well. My questions about Lucy are all ultimately asking the same thing— who is she? I desperately want to know.

These questions tumble through my mind, one after another. Then my mind goes through everything I know, or think I know. I believe Lucy is in heaven with Jesus. My sister is there too. They’re together. My brain has a really hard time grasping this. Something about it brings me comfort. Something about it feels unfair. I don’t get to be with either of them, and they are together!? I wonder about my daughter everyday.

My sister was here on earth, wondering about my daughter with me for seven years before joining her in heaven. Kate was at Lucy’s grave on the day of her burial, and yearly after. Now, she’s buried ten steps away from Lucy. I go through all of it in my brain, and like the questions, everything tumbles around like wet clothes in a dryer and suddenly I’m spinning, just trying to grasp it all.

You may or may not have noticed, but it’s been three years since I’ve posted my yearly grief update on my blog. I wasn’t able to write about this before now. I definitely didn’t have the capacity while I was right in the middle of it. Then for awhile, recounting it felt like too much. I tried many times but I couldn’t assemble the words.

Five months after my last grief post back in 2022, I went through the absolute hardest period of my life to date. 

It started with a panic attack.

Then a wave of depression.

Then more panic attacks.

It was like someone locked the gates at both ends of my window of tolerance (coping zone) and I was stuck outside of it, running back and forth from gate to gate, shaking the doors, unable to get back in. I was either experiencing extreme anxiety to the point of panicking (hyperarousal) or extreme dips to the point of depression (hypoarousal) at all times. I was just pinging back and forth between them. This felt so incredibly taxing on my nervous system. I was terrified that I was just going to snap— mentally? physically? both? I wasn’t sure.

Photo Credit: Transcend Chicago

My adaptive brain had taken over and it perceived everything as a threat. If you’re not familiar with your adaptive brain, it’s there to “grab the wheel” from your thinking brain in order to manage the stress response when you’re faced with a threat or challenge, like being chased by a bear. It’s a survival mechanism. It’s meant to get you through the dangerous event and then give control back to your thinking brain. My adaptive brain was white knuckling the steering wheel, even though no real bear was in sight.

I felt like I was losing my mind. It felt like someone had flipped a coin and my body and mind reacted oppositely of my normal— to everything. Noise sent me to tears. I didn’t really want to leave home. My whole nervous system felt like it might snap at any moment. Like after you cross the finish line from running a race and your legs feel like jelly and you wonder if they might give out with each step you take. It was extremely scary. It caused me to miss important things. It caused me to miss fun things. I couldn’t function the way I needed to.

I was living in a dark gray cloud. Existing in this state of stuck misery was excruciating and it didn’t end quickly. With the help of my therapist, psych np, and meds, I began to be able to get back into my coping zone after two long months. That wasn’t the end of it. I rode a rollercoaster of ups and downs for two years, never knowing when the lows would hit or how long they would last. I’m forever changed from all of it. I still have ups and downs as all humans do, but not as high and low as before. I’m now able to be medication-free and stay within my coping zone, which has only been the case within the last six months. Grief + trauma can be a beast. It’s been a long three years.

Going through this season helped expand my empathy and understanding towards others with mental health struggles and grief. Therapy has helped me understand why/how this happened to me. Our brains have limits. For some reason, a lot of us think we should be able to handle anything mentally/emotionally, because we’re adults? “Pull up your bootstraps”, they say. I hope that as our culture is growing in the mental health space, this idea gets fully squashed. 

I think everyone would agree that your arms and legs have limits. You can only lift so much as a child. You can lift more as an adult, but you can’t lift a house— there are limits to how much you can lift. If someone handed you twenty pound dumbbells and said, “Okay, biceps curls, you have to go for eight hours straight, no stopping.” That would be impossible— your muscles would fatigue and give out at some point in time and you’d be physically unable to lift the weights at all no matter how much you wanted to.

My brain hit that same fatigue from two major traumas in seven years— the tragic deaths of my daughter and sister, the grief that followed, plus the demands of the stage of life I’m in. I am a wife and parent of three kids with a home to take care of. At the time I had a part-time job at a marketing agency plus my own business via this blog and social media. I was dealing with family dynamic changes after my sister’s death (she had a husband and three kids), processing now being an only child in my family of origin, plus every other activity and demand in life that we all deal with on a daily basis. On top of all of that, I just miss my sister. 

It was too many reps. It was too much. My brain basically gave out, went into adaptive mode, and was stuck in a ptsd-like state. I felt trapped and miserable. I couldn’t do one more rep. I couldn’t will the fatigue away. I had to accept that I had limits. I had to be kind to myself and address what was happening. I had to work hard to show up and heal. It wasn’t fast, fun, fair, or easy. It was slow, difficult, unfair and hard.

I wouldn’t say that it’s over. Grief and all that comes with it is lifelong. I haven’t arrived, but I’ve learned about my limits, how to fully process feelings, how to give myself grace and a break, and tools to help through the hardest moments. I now reside in my window of tolerance, but I know what it feels like to be stuck outside of it so there is really no going back to “normal”. This is one of those things that feels like life before this happened and life after this happened— it changed me. Like diving into the deep end of the pool for the first time when before you’d only stood in the shallow end. You now know what it feels like to tread water.

I have the most incredible husband. Shaun is patient, helpful, supportive, empathetic, intuitive, hard-working, and kind. He’s the best partner and he took on so much extra with the kids and the house when I couldn’t. On top of that, he has a highly demanding and busy job. He made our family function when I couldn’t function and he never complained. He’s the best, and he’s my best friend. I wouldn’t be where I am without his love and support.

Jesus, never left my side. He led me through the darkest moments, connecting me with the providers and support I needed. I knew early on I’d get through this— I would heal. But I didn’t know how long I could stand to be in the excruciating state I was in. I didn’t know how long it would take and I was desperate to feel better. I had this feeling that relief wouldn’t come through a miracle or quick fix. Like the most loving Father, He grabbed my hand and walked with me through it. I had to take the steps, walk the path, learn the skills, show up, heal, or I wouldn’t be any better off than when I started. 

I think a lot of times we pray or wish for a miracle— just make the pain go away. Often times the most loving thing God does is let us walk the path through the pain to healing, no shortcuts, one foot in front of the other so we can grow and come out the other side. There is always a gift there— deeper empathy, resilience, belief, perspective, specific skills we didn’t have before or we now have a greater amount of inside of us. We gain things that no one can take away— earned from going through pain instead of around it. And if we are faced with walking the same path again, we are empowered, knowing what to do and that we can do it. And we can do it, because He promises to be right there with us.

It’s just like parenting. I know if I remove every obstacle, chance of pain, or hardship from my kids’ paths, it won’t be good for them. I would never choose the hard things, but hard things will inevitably happen. It’s so difficult to watch kids struggle, no parent likes that, but we know we love them enough to let them grow. They know they can get through things because we are with them to guide and help them— they are not alone. My faithful and compassionate Father has promised the same and I’ve seen it come to fruition in my life over and over again. God has never left my side.

I’m sad. Sometimes angry. Often exhausted and overwhelmed. I’m also grateful, happy, and still full of hope. This is life. Our stories are all unique, but pain isn’t unique and neither is grief. If you don’t feel like you’ve experienced it yet, you will, all humans do. Because of what I’ve gone through, I’ve had the ability to enter into other people’s situations and hold space there with empathy. I’ve looked other moms in the eyes, after their baby has died, and even without words they feel seen and not alone because they know I’ve stood where they now stand. It’s not easy to recount our most painful moments— the losses, the heartbreaks, but it’s always worth it if it helps someone else. 

I think in pictures a lot. On Lucy’s birthday I was thinking of all of the moms I’ve met and know who have lost a baby. I can see all of their faces in my mind. I can see all of us linking arms. No one will fall with someone to their left and someone to their right. We hold one another up. Instead of our sorrows taking us out, one by one, they bond us together. We find ourselves standing side-by-side, connected, through our losses.

When shared, the deepest and most vulnerable spaces create the deepest understanding and bonds. These bonds are nearly unbreakable, and empathy is the glue.

I’m forty now (what!?), that happened last year. I surpassed my sister in age. Kate was 39 when she died, less than two months before her 40th birthday. I’m actually almost 41 now, but I’m still telling everyone who will listen that in my mind I’ve frozen myself at 28. : ) Ask any of my kids or nephew and nieces and they’ll tell you that I’ve held to, and in fact have not even slightly budged from, my claim of being a kid. I always tell them I need a seat at the kids’ table.

There is space in my heart for deep sadness and pain and I hold Lucy and Kate there. There is space in my heart for joy, fun, and gratitude too. Life keeps moving. I’m grateful to get to be here, watching my kids, nephew, and nieces grow. Each day I’m moving forward, sun on my face, imperfect but willing, chin up, hopes up, scars on my heart, expectant of all of the hard and the great things to come.