That awkward moment when I thought that I was finally going to be able to have a Holiday without experiencing overwhelming grief. Hahahahaha what a joke. It is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and suddenly I am just swarmed with overwhelming feelings of grief. I was silly enough to think I was going to be able to skate by without experiencing the heaviness of grief. I have been doing fine, and I am actually not lying this time. Genuinely I have been doing fine in life, maybe even experiencing actual happiness multiple days in a row. So I was naïve to think that I wouldn't feel what I am currently feeling.
This is my third Thanksgiving without Kalena and the pain is still just as insufferable. I not only am grieving for myself, but I am also grieving for the experiences Kalena will forever miss out on. Let me just give you a glimpse of the things that loss moms think about that may seem meaningless to others. I will never get to make a Thanksgiving plate for my daughter. I will never experience her sitting at a table with her cousins avoiding eating because of the excitement of being with family. I will never be able to experience encouraging her to try all the different foods on her plate. I will never experience caving in and just giving her a peanut and butter jelly sandwich on a roll because she refuses to eat the food that was so lovingly prepared.
Instead of preparing a 2.5 year old daughter for Thanksgiving, I am forced to prepare myself to not f***ing lose it when my daughter is not mentioned at the dinner table. I am preparing myself to not have a menty B because she is generally avoided or forgotten about.
In my experience grief doesn’t ever stop. I just have a larger capacity to hold onto it without losing my shit. I have also learned that I am allowed to lose my shit. I am allowed to cry and be sad, because it is so disgustingly sad. This is the saddest thing I have ever had to endure and my God it is not any less sad as the time passes.