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I've heard from other parents who've lost children that the second year is sometimes harder than the first. I thought it was mostly because the shock wears off and you start to feel everything more intensely. I'm not sure that's it though.
I thought I'd be relieved at getting through the anniversary of my daughter's death. Like it was a milestone of accomplishment. Instead I feel worn out. I think back to all of the things I've gone through in the past year--losing my daughter, planning her memorial, moving, traveling, other things I don't care to share--and all while nursing and caring for an infant. It's exhausting. More than I did in the 5 years before.
How on earth do you recover from that? By recover, I mean get your strength back. I feel like I had the strength to get through the past year. Where do I find the strength for the next one?
You might think of grief like water in a bucket. Immediately after the loss, the bucket is filled nearly to the top. It is heavy; it weighs you down. In other circumstances, you would have the entire bucket to deal with all of the "normal" stressors of your life, but now, you only have the little space that is leftover to fit EVERYTHING else in your life in--that's why everything seems so hard, why it feels like you have so little strength. Grief is exhausting! But, as you become more accustomed to dealing with your loss, eventually (it is hard to say exactly when), the water in the bucket does start to evaporate, leaving more energy in its wake.
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