Learning to Hold Love and Loss in the Same Breath

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 felt like I was disappearing.

I kept trying to push through, telling myself I should be able to do this. That I should be stronger. Eventually I realized: no one is meant to survive that kind of pain alone. I needed help, proper help. Getting on medication, getting support, it was the only way I could be the mother she needed. The wife I promised to be. The daughter my parents could lean on while they were breaking too.

Even now, I cry on the most unexpected days. Ugly, messy tears. In the car, in the pantry, in the shower. Grief sneaks up quietly and hits loud.

I cry because I want him to see her.

To love her.

To tell me I’m doing okay.

To be here.

There’s so much love in my life right now. So much joy. Yet, I still feel broken, even in the most beautiful moments.

That’s something no one tells you, that you can be deeply happy and deeply grieving at the same time. You can laugh with your child and still feel a part of you missing. That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It just means you’re human.

Grief is lonely. Even when you’re surrounded by love.

Love is powerful, even when you’re surrounded by grief.

I’m learning that the two can live side by side. That it’s okay if they always do. That I don’t have to choose between feeling one or the other.

My daughter will never meet my brother but somehow, I see him in her. In her eyes. In her wildness. In the way I love her with everything I’ve got.

So I keep going. Breathing through the pain. Laughing through the tears.

Loving through the loss.

One breath in — joy.

One breath out — grief.

Always together.