Keeping it real.

A little over Seven years ago , my son was stillborn.  His heart just stopped. I went in to the doctors for my 35th week appointment and they couldn't find his heartbeat. They wheeled me down to labor & delivery. They left me in that room by myself and as I waited for my husband to arrive, so many things went through my head. I kept hearing an old pastor say "stand. And when you're tired of standing, continue to stand".  I held on to that through the night and the next day when he was born.
I went to work just two weeks after my son died. It was too soon. But people told me that I needed to move on, "get over it", and I didn't know better. I didn't know that I needed to shut out the voices and just be.
I used to have a panic attack on the way home from work  every. Single. Day.  It was bad and I was thankful my commute was only 15 minutes. My chest would hurt, I couldn't breath, and I felt like I was going to implode. I started telling myself, "K, you're okay. Life sucks right now. This isn't fair. But you can do this. You are tough. Just breath. You can get through this." Every day, I would recite this to myself for the year or so that this continued.  During the rough times since then, I find myself repeating this. I guess it's kind of my mantra, in a way.
As I face my first Christmas being single and the fact that my daughter won't be with me the entire time, I am repeating this again:"K, you're okay. Life sucks right now. This isn't fair. But you can do this. You are tough. Just breath. You can get through this."  
I think the main thing is HOPE. I will continue to hope and have faith in what I can't see and can't even imagine. 
The future is scary to me. But I will continue to repeat my mantra, put one foot in front of the other and press on.