Parallels in Life; A Reminder in Gratefulness

I wrote this back in June 2022 but, until now, I couldn't bring myself to post it...

If you've been reading my most recent posts, you know that I've revived my blog. I'm in the middle of various projects and God has so many ideas and inspirations swirling around in my head. Me being me, I have to take it one step at a time in order to stay organized and complete anything.

With that said, I've been working in the nooks and crannies of my day to mesh my two blogs together. This particular blog is my original. The blog that started it all. It's such a beautiful rendition of a big chunk of my life before the passing of my first husband and for the sake of having everything in one spot, I've been working on bringing over the dozen or so posts I had posted on my previous doula website from 2016-2018 before God asked me to lay down my birth work to focus on my family. 

My original doula website has been inactive since 2018. It was time for a whole new rebranding. If God was calling me back into birth work, He was calling me into a whole new creation. My mission for birth work has changed immensely. My passion for helping women remains the same, but my passion for helping those who take radical responsibility and extreme ownership of their entire lives has become my mission field. 

Anyways. So here I am. In the middle of a rebranding that is taking me what feels like DECADES to piece together, I'm reading through my old blog posts. It's giving me space for reminiscing but it's also giving space to some grief that I still hold deep within from the loss of my first husband. 

Early this morning, as I was reading through my post about Ele's Place; Love Hope, Friendship & Ele's Place: Our Journey to Healing, I'm in honest vulnerability. Ever since the beginning of this year, I have been well aware of the weird parallels that would be happening within my life. 

My first husband was 30 years old when he died. Our third baby was 5.5 months (to the day) on the day of his death. Fast forward almost 7 years later... My second husband has turned 30 years old and our first baby together was 5.5 months old. My PTSD has really been fighting to take a front row seat for months now. 

Thankfully, at the time of this writing, my husband is still alive. My family of 7 is still intact. I have not restarted a new grief walk. Praise God! Every morning that I have woken up to a text from my husband has been such a gift. Some trauma just stays with you for eternity. On the mornings that I wake up without a text from my husband, my heart drops and my brain goes into panic mode. I almost mentally prepare myself for the news I've envisioned to be coming. 

A few mornings ago, my brother-in-law called me at 5am. As soon as I saw his name flash across my watch while I was snuggled up cozily to my 5.5 month old infant, I panicked. Visions passed through my mind of how I would react to the news that I lost ANOTHER husband... Visions passed through my mind of how I would break the news AGAIN that my kids lost ANOTHER daddy. 

When you're 33 years old... these are not the kinds of thoughts most 33 year olds have to worry about. Most 26 year olds don't lose a husband to sudden death. Most 5 years olds, 2 years olds and 5 month olds don't lose their daddy to sudden death. It's just not a common thing... 

Grief is funny. Even 7 years later, there are crippling days of grief. There are days you don't even know why you're so sad... There are days that still send chills down your spine that something so incredibly traumatic happened to YOU! Not a stranger halfway around the world. Not your neighbor. Not a social media acquaintance. It happened to YOU. 

Empathy comes fairly easy after a traumatic loss. You realize that when others go through debilitating trauma, it's simply luck that you're not also experiencing that trauma. I'm no stranger to loss. Losing a baby in 2012. Losing a husband in 2015. Growing up and learning about life and death with our horses. 

Even as someone who has had her fair share of loss, it can still be easy to get wrapped up in the Drama Triangle of ungratefulness. Perhaps these parallels of life are simple reminders to just be grateful; even on the really hard days, even on the really annoying days, even on the days we can't stand to look at each other. It's a reminder that God has brought so much beauty from the ashes of my loss. 

I plead that I never have to experience that debilitating, crippling pain again in my lifetime. I plead that my children never have to experience the crippling pain of losing another parent or losing their spouse young. 

The grief changes with time, but it is ever-present.