Joy was something I didn’t think I’d experience again six years ago, but it was there waiting for me to find it again. There are still days I discard it like an enemy, when I am reminded, of what the cost of unbridled joy was. It’s been almost six years, little one, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss you or want you here.
Read MoreAnother festive season, the sixth without my daughter and I’m open about that fact that I stand on either side of it. Glad to be here with my son and devastated not to have my daughter. I will allow myself to feel the ache and desolation, but it will not ruin me like it hasn’t in Christmases past. I will stand, with my crooked spine and my slouched shoulders until this too passes. And it will.
Read MoreI read each memory and realized the depth of love we hold for our children. It doesn't matter how long we held them, whether they died in utero or in NICU, the important thing is that they were loved and still are. A love like that cannot be questioned. It simply is the most beautiful and natural thing in the world.
Read MoreThey held hands and promised to meet again to stare at nothing—to share their experiences, stories and memories. In time, their circle grew. Other women joined them, and they built a fire on colder days. None of them had asked to be in this tribe, but they were.
Read MoreThe day she died, I felt an ache in my heart. It intensified day by day month by month, and year by year it grew stronger. The ache was crippling and I curled up in a ball of hurt from which there was no escape. No amount of medication could ease the hurt. I feel it still, in my heart where she lives.
Read MoreI imagine Zia and I talking across a fire. She sits cross legged, smiling, a hot cup of cocoa in her hands. I am enthralled by her presence. I am the student, the listener. I imagine Zia and I hand in hand by the ocean. I look back and see our footprints, one bigger than the other. When I look back, she is gone.
Read MoreBereaved parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion, and the other side of getting through this mess called grief.
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Parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion we learn for others, having been through this mess — and see it reflected back at you, acknowledged and understood.
Thanks to photographer Xin Li and to artist Stephanie Sicore for their respective illustrations and photos.
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