Getting Through Grief: Elizabeth's Journey

How do you ever get over the death of your baby? Get through such immeasurable grief?

How did I get from that dark, dark place after losing Toby to where I am now? The truth is far from inspirational.

I wallowed.

I laid in bed with no interest in the world.

I couldn’t see how I would ever live with this.

I knew I would need to find a way but, for now, I just needed to survive.

I’d been signed off work so there was no pressure on me to do anything. I could sleep when I wanted and most importantly cry when I needed. I had an older daughter, Emily, who I would need to take to nursery. When I got home I'd crawl back into bed until it was time to pick her up. This was my life now. And how I saw my life continuing forever.

One morning, after dropping Emily off, I had breakfast before going back to bed. It was nothing monumental. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It just happened. Then the next day, I did the same. And the day after that.

Without realising my new normal had changed. My routine was now:

  • Drop Emily off
  • Have breakfast
  • Go back to bed
  • Pick Emily up

This carried on for a while and then, one day, I made lunch too. Then I was eating lunch every day. My new normal had evolved again:

  • Drop Emily Off
  • Have breakfast
  • Go back to Bed
  • Have lunch
  • Go back to bed
  • Pick Emily up.

This continued for a while until I started watching television in bed. Another tiny thing added into my day, but still something new. Every one of these steps was tiny on their own. Unnoticeable almost. They weren't things I aimed to do. They just happened. Eventually, these tiny tiny steps had taken me miles.

The grief hadn’t gone away but life had crept in.

Without realising it, I became a functioning human again.

Rather than waking up one day and saying I was going to run a marathon, I woke up one day and just put one foot in front of the other. Some days I didn’t even do that, I just stood still. Some days I even took a step back. But, eventually, I covered the distance.

If you're grieving and feel like things will never get better, don’t focus on the end goal. Just get through each day. If all you did today was survive, that’s enough.

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