The Ongoingness of Grief

Yesterday, my rainbow baby turned 10.

Bringing her into this world was a journey of five years of pain which included 10 rounds of IVF and five miscarriages. Some days I can’t believe I survived that journey, others I am grateful for the friends made and lessons learned through the inevitable grief. But mostly, I know I would do it all again, knowing the precious moments I am so privileged to have with her.

However, life isn’t simple, our stories are rarely linear and this wasn’t the completion of this portion of this road I was travelling. My journey with infertility being a significant factor in the infidelity and ultimately breakdown of my relationship with my long-term partner and the father of my two girls, two years after my miracle baby’s arrival. 

I recognise my good fortune in having a reasonable relationship with my ex-partner, one in which the wellbeing of our children has always been central.  And so yesterday was the first day, in almost eight years of separation, that I experienced not seeing my daughter on her birthday, simply because that is how the custody days we’ve agreed to fell.  

What I noticed happening for me yesterday and today reminded me of some valuable lessons I’ve learned through my own counselling journey, as well as through my training and work as a counsellor.

The first was about the complexity of grief.

It is heartening to live in a society where we are beginning to engage in more nuanced and complex conversations about disenfranchised and ambiguous grief — grief that can go unrecognised or be minimised because it is not understood, acknowledged or easily shared.

It is important that we are increasingly able to find information and social acknowledgement that grief — while primarily associated with the loss of a loved one through death — also happens with loss more broadly.

The loss of a job.The loss of fertility.The loss of a relationship or friendship.The loss of a beloved pet.The loss of a hoped-for future.

The loss of full time custody of your children.

Hopefully, as we broaden our understanding of what grief is and how it is experienced, we are also beginning to understand that grief is not something we simply “get over”. It becomes a part of us. It is ongoing.

We integrate the loss into our lives, but grief leaves an ever-present imprint — a permanent background framework through which we sometimes view the world.

As Nick Cave shared in his Red Hand Files:

“Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable.”

And so I have found myself spontaneously crying a number of times.

And it has taken me by surprise.

I threw her a wonderful party on Saturday which we had planned for months and she had loved. I had rationalised that yesterday was “just a day”. Her dad and sister shared photos of her having a wonderful birthday, without me needing to ask. I knew I would see her today after school, and we had a lovely birthday dinner planned.

And yet, it is hard.

It is sad.

It is not what I had expected my life to look like.

The grief is not about whether she was having a wonderful birthday — she has. It is not about whether she is loved — she absolutely is.

It was about what the separation means.

For me.For her.For our family.

And that is part of the ongoingness of grief. Sometimes we can know, rationally, that things are okay and still feel the sadness of what is  lost.

The grief of what separation means in my life and for my children is an ever-present thread. Most of the time, I can live alongside it without much difficulty. But sometimes something touches that thread and I feel its presence again.

The second lesson was related: how the body keeps the score.

I was telling myself the story that everything was okay.

I could explain it. Rationalise it. Make sense of it. There had been many birthdays my ex partner had missed out on it was simply my turn.  I had made plans for me, I had celebrated with her.

But when I slowed down and listened to my body, there was grief and sadness there that needed attending to.

It didn’t need to be fixed.

It didn’t need to be reasoned away.

It needed slowing down and being with.

And I had the privilege of it being a Sunday where there was space for that to be possible.

This is another part of  grief that continues to surprise me despite my knowing  — recognising that sometimes our bodies remember before our minds do. 

So yes yesterday, my rainbow baby turned 10.

She is growing into a beautiful young person, and I feel enormous gratitude for the privilege of being her mum.

And alongside that gratitude, there is grief.

Both are valid and while seeming in some ways oppositional both co-exist.

And that is the invisible ongoing grief of separation - the  tiny micro losses of moments you expected to have, the navigating the hard bits you never wanted for your kids.It is also what it means for grief to be ongoing — not that we are forever consumed by it, but that it becomes woven into the fabric of who we are, alongside love, gratitude, joy and all the other things that make up a life.