Good Days & Bad Days

The question began within the first week of Jairus's death, which perplexed me infinitely at the time. It's only just becoming clear now when asked, "Is today a good day or a bad day?" what is meant and what it feels like to indeed have a great enough difference between any of my days to call some "good" and some "bad."

For the most of the first 2-3 months after burying my baby, I would have replied to this question (if I was being honest, that is,) with something to the effect of, "Every day is bad," then it morphed into "Everyday is bad, but everyday has moments that are good, there are things to smile about too."

It's difficult to identify any day as "good" when you are healing physically from birth with no baby to hold or nurse. It's really hard to say any day is "good" when you are having traumatic flashbacks while you're awake and nightmares while you're asleep. It's painful to say it's a "good" day when you realize you've begun adjusting to the fact that your are (again...still...?) a family of 4 and not 5 for all intents and purposes. It has taken me a long time to feel like my days can be anything other than generally awful.

And I still struggle many days, being ok with the fact that we're generally ok.

As time passes it is an inevitable part of the process that we begin to have days without tears, days without the general sense of melancholy I'm almost accustomed to by now. It is definitely a relief in some ways. It is a blessing to truly enjoy the family that I get to live with, to laugh with them and create memories with them. It feels good to be able to plan things that will occur more than an hour ahead of where we are (though we're not much further out than that to be honest). It it good to feel happy again.

But it is not the carefree, lighthearted, life is great sense of happiness that is was leading up to Christmas.
It is a different feeling of happy. It's deep and pure and solemn. It's hard to describe. I think it's one of the things that reflects how I am a different person now than I was 18 weeks ago. I don't know how losing my son will affect me for the rest of my life. But I know that I am not the same. Couldn't be the same. Change has come around me and it has come within me. And I have to do my best to embrace it.

So if you ask me nowadays if a given day is "good" or "bad," it's a coin toss. I'd say I have good days with bad moments in them, and I have bad days with good moments in them. I don't really know from day to day which I'll wake up with. It hasn't been that long and there is a long road still ahead of us. But in the mean time I'm learning to cry out to God on my bad days and truly thank Him on my good days.

I don't want to get comfortable with death and its terrible effects. But I also want to celebrate life as it comes.
So whether today is "good" or "bad" it is a day the Lord has made, I'm really trying to rejoice and be glad in it.