A Siblings Grief

No one warns you how brutal it is… becoming a mom while grieving someone you thought would be here forever. When I look at my daughter, I feel so much joy it almost hurts. Yet, in the very same breath, there’s this ache that never leaves, a heaviness I carry quietly. Always being sucker punched and reminded that my brother will never know her… She’ll never know him… I hate that! I hate that he never got to hear her little laugh or hold her tiny hand. I hate that I can’t watch them together that I’ll never get to witness how much he would have adored her. He would have been obsessed with her. I can see it so clearly in my head, and it breaks me all over again. Postpartum was hard. God, it was hard!  With grief layered on top of that? It swallowed me whole. It was like drowning in two different oceans at once, one filled with sleepless nights, cracked nipples and hormones I couldn’t control, the other with loss and longing and a thousand “what ifs.” I didn’t just feel overwhelmed. I ...