Loss struck hard five days after surgery. I wept as I started a load of laundry, bumping the hamper down the stairs to avoid restricted lifting. I sobbed as I picked up dog toys and tidied rooms, folding blankets, clearing tabletops, shuffling with slow, watery determination from place to place in my sunny house, its brightness oblivious to my mood. I made the bed only to crawl into the plush mound of pillows, forming a nest and curling around the raw pain radiating from my groin.
I could feel the absence, an acute hollow, and that space pooled with self sorrow. I felt foolish and aggrieved. Even in the face of knowing, I asked over and over, how did I get here? This was never supposed to happen. I wondered if I’d made a mistake, if I’d been too hasty in this decision. I thought of the endo creeping along my insides, my ovaries sending signals into an abyss. Stop being dramatic, I snapped at myself, but that only made me cry harder.
And then the phone rang. I unsuccessfully pretended to be ok. “Would you like to talk, or not talk?,” she asked. I could hear her children bantering in the background. “You’re about to get a delivery. They wanted to make sure you’re home.”
“I’m here,” I whispered, but I had no idea what “here” meant. I felt as though I might float away, forever untethered.
“Are you feeling a loss?” she asked gently. My entire being ached in reply.
“I made the right choice,” I managed. “But still. I’m so sad.”
“There’s a word for this,” she said. “Grief. For the loss of an idea. Before there was a possibility and now that possibility is gone. Even if it’s for a good reason, it’s still a loss. It’s ok to feel that.”
She told me about the grief she felt over her C-section, her sadness for the loss of her ideal birth. She told me about the grief she felt in her body when the baby was no longer inside her. “I had a baby in my arms, and still I was so sad for what my body had lost. That may sound crazy.”
It does not sound crazy. We talked a little while longer and I did my best to put words to the feelings, the chaotic thoughts, to describe the foreign sensation of living in my healing body that no longer felt like me, distended and tender, so easily fatigued. I know it will get better, I said, but right now I am at sea. I place so much, perhaps too much, of my self worth in my productivity and in my job. I need this downtime and it’s driving me a little batty, too. Five days and I am crawling out of my skin.
“If I were to describe you,” she said. “The first word I would say is creative. You are a creator. You string beautiful words together. You make beautiful things. I wonder, if this felt right for you, if you might use some of this time to create something. Something beautiful. Something just for you.”
When we hung up, I lay quietly thinking about what she’d said, about the creation, incubation, and birth of ideas. And in that delicate moment, awash in clear February sunshine, I reconnected with my purpose.
Throughout the day my phone pinged with messages from friends checking in, sending well wishes, asking if I needed anything. I was touched. I was honest and told them I was having a hard time, but also that I was ok. More than one mentioned creating art. I felt held, by my community and the universe, gently guided out of sorrow and into hope.
I gathered my supplies. I collected the oldest of my get well blooms. And I set to work.
Create, she said.
And so I did.