Letting the tears flow

My community is going through a rough time.

Last Saturday a young woman who grew up here died in a tragic boating accident in the Everglades a day after her college graduation while out celebrating with her family. A mom of a 5th grader lost her 4-year battle to breast cancer and passed away last month. A prominent member of the congregation was in poor health and passed away last week. Most recently, a kid in my nephew's grade lost his 3-year battle with brain cancer. They had recently discovered an inoperable growth on his brain stem. The doctors sent him home and ceased all treatment. It's so heartbreaking. This spunky adorable child won't make it to his bar mitzvah because of this disease. My heart breaks for his family; for his mother. This is her baby. They fought so hard. Money was not an issue - they threw literally everything at this but it was just too aggressive.

So it's been a really tough few weeks. I don't even know what I want to happen to help get past this. I know bad things happen all the time; it just seems like this is piled up in a very concentrated area of my life. I know they're not happening TO me, but with it being added to my own personal problems it seems like things are piling up.

Work has been so busy leading up to a big event happening next week. I'm certain that something under my responsibility has fallen through the cracks because I've been so distracted. I don't know what and I'm worried about it. Just hope it can be easily fixed without causing any damage if or when its discovered.

The past few days I've oscillated between being ok and hopeful to being depressed and hopeless. I don't know how to feel. I have a void in my heart from this last loss and whenever I think about it I tear up. This pregnancy started on January 1 with the start of the new year and our new insurance and the prep leading up to IVF 5 which got us the embryo that stuck but ultimately failed and had to get taken out. My husband told me that when I woke up from the procedure last week I said something that broke his heart. Apparently it was a tearful, "They took out our baby." I don't remember it happening but it's how I feel every day.  I oscillate between wanting to try again right now and not wanting to try at all because I don't want to risk going through this pain again. We've only known failure. Even when we were succeeding it felt like we were waiting for disaster to strike. And then it did.

So instead of trying to feel better or cheer up, I'm just letting the tears flow. Feel the feelings. Embrace the pain. It feels human. It feels necessary. The chance at success is worth the risk of failure. Our experiences make us wiser and will hopefully guide our way once we're ready to try again. Until then, letting the tears flow.