There is this whole new section of my vocabulary. It’s the language of loss. Strange thing is that none of it requires interpretation, but there are all these phrases that I now speak with ease; phrases I had never uttered before three months ago.

Grief work, experiencing a loss, good days and bad days, grief, angel baby, mourning, pregnancy after loss (no I’m not, but it gets talked about a lot), subsequent children, missing, empty.

But none of them are sufficient. I think the language of loss should require interpretation. It’s a land so far from what we’ve known, so far from those who are not here, that it deserves a language of its own. The words we already know are insufficient. They don’t cut it; they don’t adequately portray the true emotions of one who grieves. To say I miss Joel is a farce. I have said that I miss a favorite pair of jeans when they rip, or a purse misplaced. How can that word possibly describe those same things? It cannot. It is utterly and completely insufficient. And to say that my arms are empty is a joke. A cup is empty when I finish my coffee, a room is empty when the furniture is moved. My heart aches; hardly. My legs ache after a long run, my stomach aches after too much pizza.

I think that’s why grief can be so isolating. Not only can no one else feel what we are feeling, but there is no language to describe it to them. The words we attempt to use have common every day meaning in all their lives too. These words are hopelessly inadequate to help convey what is happening, and the speaker knows it as well as the listener.

I have a lot of good days now. I know every one of them is by the grace of God, he blesses me with peace. But can I tell you what that good day feels like? Nope. Because I promise you, it is not the same as your good day when all the lights are green and the coffee is fresh and you come home to a clean house.

I had a baby; I bore my husband a beautiful son. We will live the rest of our lives without him. This sets the tone for every day of my life, it’s why good is not the word I need; only the word I have.