The Unspeakable Spoken

This past Friday, July 21st, 2023, was the planned delivery date for our little Ellie Kay. We were on the schedule for 7:35am, the first c-section of the day. A day very carefully chosen, which should have changed our lives forever. Instead, it slipped by like any other day, without much ado. A few people asked how I was feeling about the impending milestone. I struggled to answer, not because there was too much emotion but because there was too little. 

This wasn’t the first time I’ve felt a loss of words over the last several months. Lately, I’ve often struggled to articulate what I’m feeling or to even understand it. Perhaps it’s the complexity of compounded grief or my body’s response to experiencing so much trauma, but I find myself feeling frozen and disconnected more often than not. Being unable to discern what’s happening inside leaves me shakily riding waves of emotion as they come. This season of inner isolation has been an uncomfortable road to walk because it is not my normal way of being. 

Shortly after our recent late-term miscarriage loss, Dustin and I were walking our dog Sadie around the neighborhood. As we wandered, we reflected on some of the more challenging moments that we had faced over the last few years. One such incident occurred shortly after Gibson’s primary heart-surgery. 

I was recovering in the post-partum ward of our original delivery hospital, while Dustin and Gibson were across the street in the Children’s Hospital Cardiac ICU. We were on video chat together, with the camera pointed down at Gibson, relieved that the surgery had seemingly gone so well. Suddenly, alarms sounded and a flurry of activity ensued in Gibson’s room. In the chaos, I could not entirely tell what was happening but it was clearly very serious. When Dustin turned the camera around to his face, the look of terror I saw present there spoke volumes. Though we didn’t know it at the time, this code-blue was only the first time Gibson’s heart would stop.

As we revisited this moment, Dustin said, “You know, I used to think that I had it worse during all of that, watching it happen in front of   me. But now, I’m not so sure. You watched it happen on FaceTime, completely helpless.” 

There is no better or worse in such scenarios, we were both in horrible positions. However, in that moment, his reflection disconnected me in a way that I had never experienced before. His acknowledgement of how traumatizing it must have been to live through that moment helped me view it with more objectivity. It was as if I was witnessing myself live it from a third-person perspective, seeing all that I had been through and all that I was continuing to live with at a distance. And what I saw there brought tears to my eyes. 

Not tears of pain or sadness as would typically flow, but instead, tears of compassion that were long overdue. A deep empathy suddenly emerged for the current scared, frozen version of myself living and coping with these impossible scenarios every day. Bringing forward a much needed forgiveness, encouragement, and admiration for the wounded woman I saw. A woman who in spite of everything, continues doing the hard work of healing. There was restorative power in being able to offer myself that kindness and grace. 

These bursts of objectivity and self-reflection have continued to become an important tool in my healing process. Not only to find compassion or empathy when needed, but to create a space for each of the different voices living inside of my head to speak freely, without judgement or expectation. To comfort my scared voice. To demand justice for my angry voice. To reassure my frustrated voice. To believe in goodness alongside my hopeful voice. And in doing so, bring glimmers of wholeness back to myself. A place where all of these complex emotions can co-exist and still move forward. 

It’s not an easy headspace to access. And I definitely don’t live in this level of inner awareness every day. (Talk about #lifegoals!)  But, in a season where I’ve felt a certain amount of anxiety about losing my voice, it is comforting to realize that in the silence, I am also learning how to better listen to all that needs said.