josiah+co. Blog — Grief

This past decade has been extremely painful and beautiful; full of grief and joy.   I graduated university. Left my church. Moved cities. Had my heart broken. Lost friends.   I fell in love with Hamilton. Found a new church. Made new friends.   I discovered the Holy Spirit. Lost my faith. Discovered new expressions of faith. Left the church again.   I became a wife and a mother.   I birthed both life and death.   I broke up with myself as I learned how to parent, and learned how to parent after loss, again and again and again....

Three years ago, I joined the shittiest club in the world. I thought this club would make me "better." You know, heal all the wounds I had experienced; whatever that means. I'm getting ahead of myself though - you see, three years ago we lost a child. We already had two healthy, alive children, and we weren't expecting anything different with this one either. My wife was eight days overdue with our third, and we were prepared. The kids were ready, the room and crib were prepared, the holy-shit-it's-time-hospital bag was packed and ready to go. We were ready. Until...

My grief had become unbearable. Pushed down and ignored, it came to a bubbling point after our ‘rainbow baby’ arrived. This was supposed to be a joyful time, wasn’t it? I was supposed to be happy and ecstatic that our ‘rainbow’ was finally here. Wasn’t she supposed to wipe all the grief away? Heal the pain of our previous losses?Instead of joy, and delight, and gratefulness, I was drowning in fear, and anger, and guilt. As I held my screaming newborn I would dose off in daydreams, finding myself running away to far away places or driving my car off...

I’ve been reflecting a lot on what it means to wrestle together. To provide each other with the space and freedom to ask some of the deepest questions we have buried deep within.Grief has a tendency to cause these questions to bubble up, to rise to the surface until we cannot contain them anymore. Who is God really?Is he actually good?If everything happens for a reason, did God will my babies to die or did God cause x, y and z?Traditionally we have been taught to shove these questions below the surface. How dare we question the God of the...

Yesterday I got my first period after loss. ⠀⠀One of my closest friends also told me they just found out they are expecting.⠀⠀I’ll be honest. It wrecked me. I am wrecked.⠀⠀With previous losses I’ve been able to navigate this a lot better. I’ve been able to hold the joy for another + grief for myself in each hand.⠀⠀But this time is different. This time all I can hold in both hands is grief. I feel no joy, and I feel awful. ⠀⠀I should be happy for my friend. But I am so sad for myself.⠀⠀This sadness is heightened because this...