Victoria's Place

This weekend we visited Victoria’s place for the first time since the funeral.  We got an email from the funeral home just before the weekend telling us that Victoria’s marker was finished and in place. We picked out some colorful flowers with a little ladybug in the bouquet that we thought she would have loved. We each got a balloon and wrote a message to her. As we released the balloons and watched them rise, I was struck with the thought of how far away she really is.

 

As difficult as it was to visit our daughter’s grave, it was good for us to grieve together again.

Life has moved on around us and we struggle to move too. How do you move forward when you have lost something so precious that it can never be replaced? I feel that I exist and that is all. It must be enough for now to simply exist. While I think I have come to some semblance of peace and acceptance, the foundation of my life is cracked. All I can do is patch it.

 Think of an earthquake. Before “the event” you live in peace and security. Then, without warning, your entire world is in upheaval. Somehow you survive, but everything you care about, everything beautiful, is gone.  

All you have now is the knowledge you live on a fault line. Nothing will ever be the same.  

Just as you can’t just pick up the pieces of your life after a damaging earthquake, you can’t just pick up the pieces of an internal earthquake. The core of our lives has been altered. Will beauty ever be found again? Sure. Life will grow in the cracks.

But the cracks will always be there. I guess that is life. I don’t like my new life. I want to escape it somehow. I want my old life back. I want my husband back. I want my joy back. I want to look forward to things again.  

I’m so tired.

I’m so afraid.

What is stopping tragedy from destroying me?

How is it that more terrible things don’t happen?

How is it that anything good ever happens?

My confidence that I am protected by God has been severely shaken.

My hope that I can receive a miracle when bad things happen is shattered.

My faith is crushed.

I’m so afraid.

I’m afraid to be pregnant again. This pregnancy was a disaster, the worst experience of my life. It’s hard to imagine anything going right after this. Logically I know this will not happen again, but experientially, emotionally, psychologically, I worry. I don’t even know if I have the strength, the heart, to go through it again: To carry a child, to get attached, knowing it’s not Victoria even though she’s the one I really want. Do I even want another baby in Victoria’s room that was specifically decorated for her, or wear her clothes, or play with her things? What if I have a boy and I’m disappointed because he isn’t the hoped for girl everyone wanted. What if it’s a girl and I don’t even want to name her because I gave my favorite name to Victoria? Mike is afraid he will compare our future children to Victoria, our perfect daughter.  How do we move forward, look forward?

Jesus said in John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

And in John 14:26, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let you hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

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