Occasionally I observe people legitimately upset, lamenting the lives of the deceased. Those people, I’ve witnessed, appear to embrace their emotions across the span of their lives. Grief, rage, sadness—it’s all there, on sometimes raucous (yet honest) display. I am not vocal, yet I have suffered. And having suffered, I believe we are connected in a way that the naïve are not.
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It's ok to not be ok
To not be complete
To smile while your heart stings
To laugh amongst tear-streaked eyes
It's ok to wear your wounds on your chest
The same way you wear your love
We endure this life as trees
Bending to the weight of love and pain.
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Two years after my son’s death, and the birth of my living daughter, I have emerged from two places: my own heart’s cloister, grieving like a monk; and society’s own caverns of exile. Instead of being pushed into the corner, a wounded animal that none knew how to tend, I am treated like a human again. Now I am considered a real life mother, with a real life child.
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I accept the fact that I cannot protect my child when lightning strikes; when sudden accidents upturn your life in the blaze of a vicious wildfire, a sudden devastating car crash, the inexplicable ceasing of breath from a child's lips... Yet in the natural order of things, she may just be okay. I clutch to that frail hope, as fervently as I hold her to my chest, whispering in her ear about how she is loved and protected, for just a precious moment more, and another moment after that.
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I decorate your nursery with the utmost care—the perfect crib, the daintiest florals. Yet a dream lingers, smoky and yearning, blooming between the flowers at my fingertips: blue walls instead of pink, sporty decals in animal shapes. Months of planning: the registry, the baby shower. The first one is so special, he deserves a big audience.
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The love for our children is eternal, existing amidst the fringes of lie and death. Yet the love can never be separated from the pain. To love them is to grieve them, a heavy choice that we have grown to accept. If I can embrace the blissful memory of my son, I will gladly take the pain alongside it—whether an echo, or a shout, his existence is real, and he is loved.
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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: not ttc | infertility after loss
: parenting after loss
: on the bookshelf
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: how to help a friend through babyloss
: how to plan a baby's funeral
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