By night…
Most superheros have a saying around by day/night.
Mild mannered office worker by day, savior of the city by night type of a thing.
That is a bit how I feel.
Normal person by day, grieving mom by night.
It isn't that I don't grieve during the day, or don't think about Spencer, or am not a mom. I do and am all of those things during the day. They just don't really show.
I go to work, do my job, talk to clients, joke with friends, eat lunch, answer emails. Nothing in my routine has changed much. To the average viewer.
Nothing appears out of place, or different than what it was before.
The few hints are there. The picture on my desk, the necklaces I wear, sometimes the things I say. But my loss, my grief, isn't some cloud people can see sitting over me. I don't have some flashing sign on me that says 'be kind, her baby died'
or anything like that.
I go about my day. At work, they all know, but I am still me.
When I am out running errands, or just in the world. No one looks at me and knows anything. They don't know that my life has been hard lately. That the little girl I am holding has fought for her ability to giggle as loudly as she does. That I hold her extra tight, because I don't get to hold anyone other than her.
They don't know that being in the Target baby section can make me smile or want to punch a wall. They don't know that I am walking slowly because I am only a few months out of my second c-section in as many years.
“Nobody really knows how much anyone else is hurting. We could be standing next to someone who is completely broken and we’d ever know. So, be kind always. With yourself, and others.”
At night, at home. It is different.
I still do my regular routine here too. I make dinner, pick up socks, play with Kenzie, put her to bed, eat dinner, watch stupid tv. I still do all those things.
But at night,
I am a mom who is missing a piece of herself. I am a mom looking out at a tree and commenting how at home it looks. I am a mom turning a night light on in my room, instead of the room down the hall. At night I talk about the house being too quiet, and how much I miss him. We talk about him at home. At home, no one looks at me and doesn't know my story.
At home, I am me, but with the unspoken understanding that I am forever changed, forever impacted by something greater than one can even truly understand.
By day-By night...
Everyone has gone through things you do not see.
Be kind- you don't know everyone by day and by night.