My grief is haunting me again...

I ate cupcakes for breakfast.

I'm in and out of a funk lately and it isn't a day by day thing, it comes and goes whenever it wants to. Sometimes it will pop in and slip away in minutes, other times it is like I am dragging a 300 pound suitcase around with me for days.

It is really hampering my ability to finish homework that should have been finished last week.

I know a big part of it is grief and that I can become a better person for having experienced it.

(that saying about "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" makes me mad. I know it's true but it feels so trite and is usually spoken by people who haven't dealt with any really, big, soul-wrenching, constantly-feel-like-you're-going-to-throw-up kind of grief)

Anyway, I was thinking this morning,

(while I tried to go back to sleep to shut it all out)

that I am feeling sad about more than "just" having my baby die, I am sad about all of the things that would have come with it. A new personality, a new part of our little family, old traditions like my favorite lullabies, things that I wish I could do differently or better than I did with Celeborn (my only "brand-new" baby), new things that I haven't even thought up yet.

There is so much more involved in having a baby than just a new person around. It changes us, it changes our family, it brings a new perspective.

I think about my sister Rebekah. I was 18 when she was born. Scott and I met when she was only a few months old and married shortly after her first birthday. There is not a time in her life includes memories of me living at home. Her childhood was vastly different from mine. But she has changed our family. We are all better for having her in our lives. She is amazing and I can't imagine our family without her.

I think of Keli, who told me last time we chatted, how sad she is that new people in her life don't get to know Britton. We can share bits of him, but he was so unique, so original, and so full of life and a personality that people will never get to know.

I know in some ways that my baby seems less real because he never took a breath, but today I am grieving this loss. This loss of possibility. This loss of the wonderful change a new baby would have brought to our family.

But I don't want to end on a negative note...

I have so much to be grateful for, and I really do feel it. My friend Heidi shared this quote on her blog and it made me feel stronger so I am sharing it here:

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

-Mother Teresa