April fool

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April fool

The shock of this trick is something I have not been able to overcome in six years. That I fell for the trap. I have heard from babyloss parents how the loss of their baby in an otherwise uneventful life, at the end of an uncomplicated pregnancy was like being hit in the face by a bolt of lightning. I get that shock that jolts you out of the naivete. I understand how ridiculous it must be, when you don’t know the “other,” and suddenly the “other” becomes you.

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The wheel and the windmill

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The wheel and the windmill

From afar, and recently, on my trip to India, in person, my Hindu family, friends, neighbors, well-wishers from every sphere of my past, have been swearing on the karmic cycle, the soul, the wheel. Many of them have referred to Raahi as a “liberated soul,” one who has attained moksha or nirvana. I am grateful. It should be enough. The compassion, a heavy sigh, wordlessness. But few people stop at that.

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Death makes the heart grow softer

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Death makes the heart grow softer

Then when he was three-and-half years old, his sister died. She went away on a summer morning, and never reappeared. Suddenly from the edge of the carpet, someone could leap to the end of the universe, to a place no one has seen, and no one ever comes back from. He did not understand what death was, or how far it took our little baby. But he loved trains, so his sister, who was the little El train running parallel to him, the bigger Metra, just “went ahead to the next station.”

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The shining dead star

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The shining dead star

Kate’s piece on positivity—and the ceremonious celebration of gratitude four days away—places me in a strange cusp, a crack in the veil of pristine white we are asked to gently wrap around us. As though positivity or gratitude is going to whitewash our lives into becoming those pretty pictures we put up on Facebook and Instagram. As though losing a baby is one of those elastic springs one can bounce back from.

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Hibernation to apathy to nirvana

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Hibernation to apathy to nirvana

I am hibernating. In summer, in broad daylight. In the middle of the week, in the throes of work. When the world is buzzing around me like a bee in spring, all I want to be is a neatly-curled squirrel in winter. The world is spinning, and no matter how much we try, it’s still impossible to turn time back or sprint it forward. In the middle of all this, in a thorny cage of prickly ‘aspects’ trying to make me care, I am stuck. I am dumbstruck, even as I gently flap my wings and blink my timeless eyes.

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