Monday, March 2, 2015

Unchosen, Part 1

I was going to start this post by saying it will most likely be the hardest post I will ever write. But then I remembered the original post that I wrote 5 years ago, the day after we were Unchosen. So I guess this will be the 2nd hardest post I have ever written. And because of its length, I will be breaking it up into a few posts, which I will post over the next few days.

Five years ago was the worst day of my life. It didn't start that way, it was just a normal Tuesday. Work had slowed down for the day, so I decided to check my email.

That is when my world stopped.

I no longer have the email, so I can't remember exactly what it said. At first, I thought I had read it wrong. Things had felt so right, how could this be happening? But there were the words: "I have changed my mind. I'm going to choose someone else."

I remember just staring at my computer in shock. How could this be? I didn't know what to do. I wanted to leave, but I had ridden with a coworker that day, so I had no way to get home. Also, the work day was almost over, so I decided to try and finish the day out in silence. I asked someone to cover my desk for a minute, so I could step away.

I found an empty office and called Josh. By the time he answered, I was hysterical. Through the sobs, all I could do was tell him was to check our email. I asked him to come get me, but he pointed out that before he could get to town, my coworker and I would already be on our way home. I tried to dry the tears and clean up my face and I went back to work. It was the longest 30 minutes of my life.

That night, we cried and wondered what had gone wrong. All of our hopes and dreams were suddenly gone and we didn't understand why. What could we have done different? What made this new couple better than us?

The previous months had been some of the best of our lives. We had been on cloud 9 since November. Our grief caused us to rapidly spiral downwards.

We couldn't find it in our hearts to tell people the news. We hadn't had much support through the entire adoption process. When we had told people we had been chosen, nearly every one made the comment "What if she changes her mind?" I always wanted to scream at them to be happy for me. Because of all of this, I couldn't face someone saying "See, I told you so." They hadn't supported us during the happy part, I knew they wouldn't be there for the hard part either.  In the end, all I did was a small blog post, Unchosen.

We had no idea how to deal with our grief. The next morning, we were like zombies, but we decided to pretend like nothing was wrong and we both went to work. That is one of the biggest regrets. We needed time to grieve; we should have started that immediately.

One of my dear friends at work saw my blog post that morning. I'm eternally grateful that she was there for me. She gave me her love and support. She helped spread the news, so I wouldn't have to. By the end of the day, I realized, I couldn't do the same thing again tomorrow. That is when we decided to disappear for the weekend.

We went to a small hotel out in the middle of nowhere. We locked ourselves in the room and just tried to forget the world outside. We cried. We loved. And we cried some more. I remember at one point, we were laughing about something and then suddenly I was bawling again. How could I laugh during such a horrible time?

 

3 comments:

  1. Oh Savannah,it must have been so awful, being at work, then going back the next day. You're right - you needed to grieve. But when we're hit with something like this, we don't know what we need.

    I can also relate to your last sentence. Feeling guilt about laughter during such a normal time. When that laughter is actually so necessary to our healing. I hope that you're not reliving this loss (too closely, at least) by writing about it again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow. This was hard to read. I can only imagine living through it.

    I am so sorry that this happened to you and your husband. You will be in my thoughts on this really crappy anniversary!

    ReplyDelete