Another layer of grief.

I decided a few weeks ago that I needed to change up our Easter celebration and not spend it at home being sad about not being able to spend the holiday together as a family and missing that is has always been one of our most joyful holidays with our church community. So we switched it up and planned a weekend away with family by birth and by choice. It was an excellent weekend that included a musical, a museum visit, Easter Mass with a great community and a day with Kate's godparents (who were foster parents) whom we love to pieces. 

We learned while we were away that Kate's godfather has stage 4 cancer, it sent us all reeling to say the very least and now on top of everything else we are adding another layer of grief to our lives. He will fight and be treated but it will not be a cure and instead just a way to be able to sustain his life and spend time with the people he loves. Sadly they live about 5 hours away from us and we will not be able to spend nearly as much time with them as we would like. 

Kate understands that he is sick but doesn't understand what stage 4 means and I just do not have the stamina to tell her that one of her favourite humans is going to die long before his time. It makes me so profoundly sad for her because she has already lost so much and she cares so deeply for him. 

Grief is messy and complex and in the last few weeks I have been quite firmly stuck in sadness and although it is hard I am okay to sit here and be sad. Sad for my kids, sad for our lives and losses, sad because I will not have the future that we dreamed of as a family. I am sad that my chronic illness makes my pain intense and my days hard and then effects how we live together. 

I am sad and I am okay with that for now.