No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. ― C.S. Lewis
Over the past week, fear started creeping back in again. It started off like little pangs of doubt, but now it has morphed into full-blown terror.
Im afraid that Mia wont be accepted.
Im afraid that people will say cruel things to her.
Im afraid of the day I have to explain that shes different.
Im afraid of well-meaning people who will stereotype and simplify her.
Im afraid of the day I have to explain Down syndrome to Fynn.
Im afraid of the next health scare.
Im afraid of what the delays will mean for our family.
Im afraid
I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.
At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me. C.S. Lewis
Grief feels so much like fear. When I grieve I don’t listen.
Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. ― C.S. Lewis
Thank you, Jack. Ill spend today listening.
And then:
Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin. ― Mother Teresa