for babylost mothers and fathers

She went in less than fifteen minutes, after we said our good byes. She waited for us. I guess she knew when.

Somehow, in the quiet of it all, I’ve come to understand that this is how we survive. We carry both—side by side, grief and love, loss and life—and in the space between, we find a way to keep going. It’s not easy, and it’s not without its darkness, but there’s something profoundly human in the persistence, in the hope that even in the depths of sorrow, life still offers its light.

After she died, all of the perfectionism and striving went right out the window. I permanently deleted all my social media accounts and never looked back. In a moment of rage, I threw all the parenting books right in the trashcan (I know that’s not very environmentally friendly, but recycling wasn’t going to satisfy my rage. I wanted those books incinerated on an industrial scale).

Block by block these 6 million minutes have piled up around me. Some I have deliberately moved and sorted and arranged, compiling them into something I can live with and in, a story I can tell about what happened to us and how we carried on. Some blocks stay strewn around, rubble, minutes I could do nothing with or in but cry and rage, when there was no sense to be made.

This week’s post is ‘from the archives.’ Julia writes about positive thinking, something I’ve been thinking a lot about, again, since going through breast cancer treatments this fall. This post is angry, smart, so funny and just the kind of thing I needed to read. You can find the original post and comments here.

But what if we thought of both responsibility and resilience as collective, rather than individual? 

What if we walked away from the individual memoir of the one sad woman, all alone in her shame? 

What if we began to walk together, forming a collective chorus, louder and louder until our voices can’t be ignored?

When my son Felix died at birth, I was sure that all milestones did too. For 37 weeks, we’d watched and felt Felix’s progress and growing strength in utero. Now, there would be none of the joyful and challenging ‘firsts’ we had experienced with our firstborn. Felix’s eyes would never open, his teeth would never burst through tender gum, and the silence of each night without his cries would be deafening.

I wish you knew my grief, all the years without her being mentioned, 
without even a single thought until July rolls around each year.
The guilt of smiling, of forgetting for even a moment.
The anger at a world that keeps turning while mine has come to a halt.

she is long gone,
and much of the carbon in her little body
has already moved on to someplace else.

and with that revelation, a relief --

You may have noticed it’s been quiet around here the last few weeks.

But in the depths of this despair,
I find a flicker, a light, a flare.
For though you linger, dark and grim,
Love's eternal flame will never dim.

i always think you’re dying.
isn’t that the silliest thing?

you have long been dead
and in the ground

I understand why those doctors, sisters, friends, thought I needed therapy. I was filling out those questionnaires at every postpartum appointment.. “How many times in the last two weeks have you felt down, depressed or hopeless…Little interest or pleasure in doing things…” According to these forms, something was wrong with me. It was quantifiably pathological how sad I was, how I sat for days on end crying and staring at the wall.

I recognize that heartbreak and could not wish it on anyone, and yet somehow, I find myself thinking, at least you can hear him talk whenever you want. I talk to my daughter all the time, but what I can’t do is hear her voice…

it’s not productive to think about
but sometimes it’s important to go over it all again,
like a perverted reassurance
that she died and it’s not my fault or her fault or their fault

We were in shock, and we had no obvious religious or cultural traditions to follow in this situation. What was offered to us was either a religion we didn’t believe in, or nothing at all. We didn’t have the energy or creativity in that moment to invent our own tradition, so it was nothing. No one around us stepped in, maybe because our entire community lacks a clear set of rituals or guidelines for how to respond to serious illness or death. 

What if we didn’t celebrate her birthday this year?

This is the treacherous, traitorous thought that runs through my head this early January, as the rain falls ceaselessly and the gleam and glitter of Christmas fade into the background.

my body knows

it quivers into december,
as warm wreaths brighten up lampposts 
set against skies rich with winter coming

“Dear Felix,” I start my journal entries now, channeling my son through his two sweet syllables. I feed and water our relationship with words, not wanting to miss what blooms in darkness. I beckon him close, close, closer still.

I have a recurring daydream. The details and logistics vary but the core fantasy is the same: time travel exists. Sometimes it’s a new scientific discovery like a time machine that people can opt to use within set parameters.  Sometimes it’s a secret ability that only I access for some mysterious reason like in Back to the Future. Always my goal is to prevent my daughter’s death.

a backpack is full of hope and adventure
and discovery of who that precious child will become
in this strange formidable world that all children are called to conquer

I used to worry about the days somewhere far in the future when I might not think of her every hour, or even every day. I used to think that when those days arrived it would mean I had failed her, had forgotten her, had left her trapped in some kind of terrible limbo, neglected, lost for real. It’s not like that, though, and I wish I could’ve known that all those years ago. Someone probably told me. I know I didn’t believe them.

In whispered winds, a sorrow's breath,
A cherished soul embraced by death.
A heartbeat stilled, a lullaby unsung,
In the icy grip of July's cruel tongue.

I choke on the combination of tears and diesel and smoke. Kara notices and asks me if I am okay. I gesture at the grass beside us, at the empty strip of green between the McDonald's and the TA, and she understands. There is nothing where I am gesturing. Like me, she sees what is not there. I am gesturing at the space where our other daughter should be playing, having already finished what would very likely not be her first Happy Meal.