A Dollop of Grief on Top of Grief – The Hopelessness of Trying Again

Hope is a tempting tease, luring you into her arms with her seductive promises of a life with a little less weight to it. She is there, ready and willing, to save you from falling over the edge of the cliff of despair by offering out her hand.  You reach up towards her and she smiles down upon you.  You feel a sense of relief, a sense of safety, a sense of hope as your fingertips brush hers, only she lets go and watches your descent with an outstretched hand and look of “I told you so” as you tumble again, into hopelessness.

Sometimes I hate hope.  There I said it.  I don’t like her, because of everything mentioned above.  It’s as if every month I agree to go rock climbing with her.  She is the expert and as she straps me into my harness and checks my lines she reassures me that she will catch me if I fall.  She comforts me by telling me, knowingly that there is a way through all this pain and it is up and over the big cliff. Hope and I will get through this; I just have to trust her she says. She leans in and tells me how I will get pregnant again as long as I believe in her to help me through this terrifying climb we are about to take together. “I know you will have another child, a live baby this time,” is what she whispers into my ear before me decent. 

     

So I close my eyes and begin climbing towards her, believing that she will help me overcome the sadness, the fear, and the anxiety by getting pregnant again. Remember, she told me to try.  She reassured me that she would hold my rope secure as I raced to the top to meet her there with the promise of dreams come true.

Ah, but as I said, Hope is a temptress tease because the moment I started to maybe consider that I could be pregnant again.  That I could climb this monstrous mountain into motherhood with the idea that the end would be different this time, she lets me fall with the arrival of another red stained drop in underwear. 

I haven’t even climbed the cliff up very far before she let me drop this time.  The pain form the fall isn’t nearly as agonizing as it was the day she pushed me from the summit of motherhood as she did when Nora died.  This time it’s just a dollop of grief, on top of grief.  But it still hurts when I fall.