Ditching the guilt.

When you find people who love you unconditionally, with out reservations, with out fear; hold on to them. 

I’ve never had a hard time sharing images of our daughter, images of our grief, but there are some photos that I shy away from posting. Mostly fear of judgment, but also guilt. I feel so incredibly guilty that there are several images of me smiling after my daughter died, smiling at her funeral. When we were in the hospital, they give you a “pillow” which was actually a rolled towel in a pillow case, to press against your incision, when you need to sneeze laugh or cough, after a cesarian. After I had my daughter, my family labeled mine, my “Giggle Pillow”, and it drove me nuts, I felt guilty every time someone said it. 

So while I was going through the images of her funeral today, I stopped on this one. It wasn’t a moment of happiness, but a moment of love. Loving this man who had taken such good care of me unconditionally. Loving him so much, that I could look into his worried and stressed eyes, and know that somehow we would survive this. Our daughters casket is behind us, and our family is all around, but in that second we found a way to just be him and me. We found a way to communicate that we loved each other endlessly, and that we were gonna push through this together. 

And I thought “It was okay, for me to feel that. It was okay, for my grief to not overwhelm every single second of me.” And I thought about how this may be one of the most intimate photos of the two of us, ever taken. And that its okay, to share, and okay, that it happened on what was one of the worst days of our life. 

When you find the people who love you unconditionally, with out reservations, with out fear; hold on to them.  And if you’re grieving; ditch the guilt. Embrace every single second that the guilt isn’t drowning you. It’s okay, I promise.

So while I am at it, Here are a few more. 

Pretty sure Matthew wasn't impressed that I forced him to smile for the first one ( tickling never fails) but the second one was much more free. It was us releasing balloons in her honor, and It felt like a beautiful way to say "happy Birthday" to her. Even tho her Birth, day was shadowed by her death .