CYG - Day 3

Day 3 is an after loss self portrait.  Ugh.  I had a really difficult time finding a picture for this.  One problem is that there just aren’t a ton of pictures of me in the early weeks and months after Caroline’s death.  Another problem is how I look in the ones that do exist.  I kind of hate to see myself during that time.  They’re hard to look at.  It’s hard to see myself still looking pregnant, puffy (or just plain fat), sad, ugly.  That kind of grief is ugly and it came out in how my face and body looked.  I can tell that there’s no real light in my eyes.  The smile on my face was forced and all I really wanted to do was crawl into bed and cover up my head.

The picture that I chose is from Christmas 2010.  It had been 2 months since we lost our girl.  We were having our traditional family gathering at my grandmother’s house and I was just going through the motions.  I mean, I didn’t give two flying flips about Christmas that year.  I really just wanted to ignore it and for it to go AWAY!  But, it didn’t.  It came and people were still happy and I was still sad.  But when a camera is in your face, you plaster a smile on your face, and pretend that all is well, right?!  So, that’s what this picture is.  I’m smiling.  I’m pretending that I’m happy on that Christmas day.  I’m putting on a face that says that I haven’t completely fallen apart and I’m not .2 seconds from giving up, even though that’s how I felt.

My beautiful mom is beside me, loving me, supporting me.  But I can tell from her smile that her heart is broken too.  This is such a sad “Merry Christmas” picture!  But it’s the best we had that year.