Grieving.

Fuser and I recently returned from a trip to Hawaii. It's not a place I'd ever really had the desire to visit, but we went because we couldn't go somewhere else, it was inexpensive, and we wanted a chance to be far away from everything else (thougth the laptop found it's way into Fuser's backpack). Simply put, we needed the opportunity to be just the two of us in one celebratory last time. I'd jokingly been referring to the trip as our last hurrah before the baby arrives, but it was more a chance to remain in the union and partnership we've created over the past five years and just be together.

Our time was unique, uninterrupted, constant, and precious. I love who Fuser and I are together. I think to some extent I've had lurking feelings of lament over what we are in essence losing in the addition of this new life. Don't get me wrong, there is intense joy at the expectancy of this coming life and even now as I write and feel a constant prodding of the little one's foot in my lowest rib I can only smile at the faculty of created life. Things will change. Our relationship will be different. Life will be full and dominated by the needs of this helpless one.

I don't feel guilty for grieving the loss of being just the two of us. Even out of grief comes great joy. Without grief how would we recognize its antithesis?