My Rock

During the first few days after Brianna died, I was a mess, both physically and emotionally.  I was numb from the shock of losing our daughter.  I had trouble concentrating on anything.  And here I was, in the hospital, being peppered by questions from the staff on what I wanted to do with my dead baby.  Did we want her cremated, buried, or donated to the State Medical Board?  Had we chosen a funeral home to handle her remains?  Did we have a pastor or chaplain or priest we wanted to come to the hospital?  And the questions just kept coming.  During all of this, Tim was so calm.  He was my rock.  He was the one who stepped in and told the staff to slow down.  He was the one to ask if we really needed to make the decisions right then or did we have a few hours/days to decide.  He was the one to take the questions, one at a time and help me concentrate on making the decisions.  He was the one to make all the calls to the funeral homes and visit them to decide on the right one for us.  He was the one who fielded all the phone calls from our friends and family as they were finding out what had happened.  During it all, he was my support.  I couldn't have made it through those first few days without his support.


As the days turned into weeks, I spent a lot of time online.  I was searching the internet for stories of others like me, women who had lost their babies.  I discovered a huge online community of babyloss parents. And among this community, there were many websites that had different advice on how to grieve and how life would look in the aftermath of this horrible loss.  One thing I found through all my reading was that marriages were either made stronger or they fell apart due to the stress of the loss.  This really hit me hard.  At this time, I was starting to drift off into my own world of grief, leaving Tim on the outside, looking in.  It was after reading the sobering statistics about marriages failing after a loss that I vowed that Tim wouldn't lose me too.  He had already lost his first child, our beautiful daughter, and I was damned sure he wouldn't lose his wife too.  I wasn't sure how I would stay connected to him, but I knew that I had to try my hardest to make sure that connection still existed, day in and day out.  I knew that even if it got strained at times, as long as I could hang onto even the smallest thread of a connection, we'd pull through this awfulness as a whole couple and our marriage would survive.

Over the last few months, it has been hard.  There have been times where the two of us have noticed a disconnect in our relationship.  It was during these times that we made more of point to talk to each other, to draw out the other's feelings and discuss what was going on inside our heads.  Even though I wanted to crawl inside myself and shut out the whole world, Tim included, I knew that would be the sure way to losing my marriage and more importantly, my best friend, my husband.  So, even though it was emotionally painful and brought me to tears (sometimes even sobbing), I would tell Tim exactly what I was thinking on my darkest of days (even if it took some coaxing on his part to get me to open up).  It pained me to know that he felt awful too, knowing that he couldn't "fix" it and that there really isn't anything that can be done to make me better.  But by telling him just how I am feeling, our connection remains intact.


In the last 6 months, Tim has been my reason for getting up each day.  He has been the one to carry the hope for our future when I couldn't anymore.  He has been the voice of reason when I was in the depths of despair and grief, thinking that no one could understand.  He has been my rock of support, allowing my to grieve my way, no questions asked.  Without him, I'm not sure I could have made it this far without a complete emotional breakdown.  And I know that in the coming months and years, he will continue to be my rock, no matter what.  And for that, I am forever grateful.


Tim - I love you more today than I ever thought was possible.  I am proud to call you my husband. And if Brianna was here, she would be proud to call you Daddy.