I looked in the mirror the other day and saw it: the eyes of grief. I've seen them on others, realized the magnitude of loss it takes to change a person's eyes after I lost Orion, but it wasn't until recently - as we close in on his 2nd birthday - that I saw those eyes on my own face.
Maybe they've been there for nearly 2 years now and I only just noticed.
Maybe it takes time to alter a face to reflect a soul that has been shattered and put back together, with one tiny, baby shaped piece missing.
Maybe its the loss of innocense. And in a way, that takes time to happen...the 2nd year seems to be harder for so many of us in the baby-loss community. I think its because hope is lost. That first year you are just drowning, just submerged under the weight of sadness and pain and anger and questions and you believe - you must believe - that if you just keep struggling forward, one tiny step at a time, though it rips your heart to shreds to move forward at all - if you just keep moving forward, eventually, you will arrive at a place where you can breathe again without a searing burn every time.
And you do get to that place. And you can breathe again. But your baby is still dead. And that realization, as bizarre as it sounds, is what destroys hope. There is no happy ending. There is no "I survived this" in the past tense. This is something that you will endure for every single day for the rest of your life. It will never be the past tense.
I did not sign up for this. I did nothing to deserve this. And I cannot ever NOT be the mom of a dead child ever again. The finality doesn't sink in until the 2nd year. The completely overwhelming CHANGE doesn't seem permanent until the 2nd year. And then hope fades. You will never again get to be the person you were before. She is gone, just as permanently as the baby who grew under her heart. They died together.
And I don't know if the change in the eyes happens the day the baby dies, or more when the mother realizes that it can't ever be made okay again - she will never be whole again - and then her eyes change. Something shifts between the eyelids and and the eyebrows, and its so real that I can see it in others and not be surprised when they eventually tell me about their dead baby. I can think back to a high school teacher who's daughter died very young and suddenly understand that look in her eyes that I had always misunderstood. And yet, I was shocked the day I saw it in my eyes. Its our secret code, the true meaning known only to members of this awful, unwanted, club.
I have the eyes of a loss-mama. I still see amazing beauty everywhere I look, so don't mistake the edge of sadness for an inability to feel joy. There is just a new depth to everything.
