Is it ok to cry?

Everyone tells you that it is ok to cry, but is it?

Early advice following a bereavement of any kind is that it is ok to cry. People worry that you’re going to hold it all in and deny your emotions time but the truth is that your emotions take time themselves. In the days that followed Tobias’ passing, my eyes were constantly filled with tears. (That feeling when you are welling up and a tear could leave your eye at any moment, that feeling was a permanent one for days.) I would try my best to hold it together until I was in private, not because I didn’t want people to see me upset but because I knew that once it started the tears wouldn’t stop. I occasionally shed a tear with friends or family but the only person I could really pour my heart out to was Jake.

Jake got it. He understood the pain I was feeling. He let me cry without having to think of anything to say, without giving advice or without trying to make things better. I was just allowed to cry.

As the days turned into weeks people’s messages and the amount of times friends would ‘check in’ became fewer and fewer. At one point I couldn’t even reply to all the messages, I managed to find time to read them but actually everyone was so good at keeping me busy I hardy had a second to appreciate how lovely each message was. The friends that came out from the woodwork to offer their comfort or reach out for a chat. I’m not sure if these messages were helpful, now I question where they have all gone. If those distant friends (or probably a better word ‘acquaintances’) really did care, where are the now, were they just being nosey or sending a message to make themselves feel better. I have responded to a few messages more recently to take them up on the offer of a coffee or catch up but I have received very few responses and one of those didn’t reply until the day we discussed had come and gone. This made me think that they either forgot about me or they didn’t really want to meet up in the first place.

The days after returning home, I would sit for hours and just try to understand everything that had happened. My head was filled with memories that would replay over and over in my head. Now, the memories seem harder to grasp, Jake has returned to work and I am trying to live life without my baby.

The chapters of our journey have been equally hard in different ways. The hospital stay was really difficult emotionally but so busy, I didn’t have time to grieve, be upset or go for a catch up. Now is the time. Now is the time I need the support, telling me it is ok to cry, checking in to see how I am, asking if I need anything, or simply just taking 2 minutes from my extremely long days where I have to take the time to reply to their messages. People told me ‘it’s ok to cry,’ when did it stop being ok? Now, I want to cry.

Now when I cry people freak out. People rush after me when I walk away for a moment on my own. When I want to sob in a corner and remember my baby, people follow and ask questions, they try to give advice or ‘fix it’ but they can’t. No-one can fix it, I don’t know why people try. When I am on the phone to family, tired and exhausted, if I cry they all call each other to tell everyone I am having a bad day and that they need to check up on me. No, I’m not having a bad day, it is the same as every other day, just today I chose to show you how I feel. Don’t check up on me because I cry, check up on me because you want to. When I sob on the arm of Jake he worries. He panics that I am home alone all day, that I don’t speak to anyone, that I don’t want to go to big birthday parties or celebrations, he worries that I’m depressed and alone. He isn’t wrong. He is right.

It has been 2 months since my baby died. I am depressed, I am alone, I am hiding from people but actually I’m ok with that. I need time. I need time to grieve, time to be with no-one else, time to cry when I want to, to sob in the corner without people around me panicking or trying to fix anything. I need time to be me, to understand how I am and how I feel. I need to time to accept or decline invitations depending on how I am feeling in that moment. People say they understand and that I can have space if and when I need it, but do they? I hope so.

I need to be selfish. I cannot take the worry or panic from others anymore. If I am having a bad day (I don’t mean a day where I feel worse than any other, I mean a day when I can’t hide my emotions anymore), I will say no to people, to events, to parties. One day I will begin to say yes, and I pray that I have the strength to accept invitations more and more. Eventually this chapter will also be a memory, I’ll be glad when it is! I need my strength to move through this chapter and into the next one. My strength is going to come from a place inside, sitting with my emotions and working through them ‘one moment at a time.’