you are here

Next month, on the 21^st, it will be two years.  To a toddler, that may be a lifetime, but to an adult, it is an election cycle.  And yet, thinking about the amount that has been packed into that brief stretch is like thinking about how, in one second, light will travel 186,000 miles, or how one teaspoon of a neutron star would weigh six billion tons.  They are things that can be known, but not comprehended.  Not really.

Lately, I have been having more of my “Gus and Zoey Moments” than I used to.  These are moments when I think of them and feel the floor drop out from underneath me.  When I think of them and feel sad.   As the second anniversary of their births and deaths approaches, I may miss them more than I did after the first one.  I may.  It’s hard to remember.

Maybe it is because we are now within a month of their anniversary.  Maybe because Ben and Ellie’s growth provides reference points for what Gus and Zoey might have looked like, or acted like, or been like, if they had only, simply lived.  Either way, they are more present to me these days.  That might have been a nice thing, but it means that there are moments when suddenly, Ellie and Ben seem like my other children.  And I don’t know how to explain that to them or to my own heart: Don’t worry. It’s only because the anniversary is coming up.  It will be like this for only one month out of the year. The other eleven, you guys come first.

Maybe that sounds crazy.  If it does, then here comes the crazy on top of the crazy:

In those moments of connection to Zoey and Gus, and wondering about them, and imagining them, I miss Ellie and Ben.  I have to: in that universe, my other children never were and can never be.  So when those moments with Gus and Zoey end, and I feel myself being pulled back to what is in front of me, I cross a space where I have lost them all.  I am leaving a place where I have Gus and Zoey, and not fully back in the place where I have Ben and Ellie. 

I am in this in-between place for the briefest measure of time—what is shorter than a nanosecond?—but the experience is so distinct and definite, the tinge lingers for seconds or even minutes afterward:

For just a sliver of a moment, I miss all four of my kids.  And why shouldn’t I?  There is no universe that can accommodate them all.

And if that sounds crazy, then here is the crazy on top of the crazy on top of the crazy:

Sometimes, when I feel I can only hold one set of our children in my mind, and not the other--or worse, when it seems like because I cannot keep all of my children, I cannot keep any of them--it feels as if our only constant child is our dog.

What are some of the "crazier" thoughts, ideas, or feelings your loss can bring up? What does the anniversary of your loss trigger for you? What are some of the ways you cope with it?

gone

We'll, I've just about done it.  Seems it has been my goal all along without even realizing it, but now it is as clear as day.

I've been trying to disappear completely and I'm almost there.

Since Silas passed away I've been step by step letting go of everything that can't help me.  Friends that can't handle my sadness, gone.  My previous car: rear-ended while I was not in it, and then subsequently totaled by the insurance company.  The future I expected as Lu grew grew and grew, utterly and completely altered, that specific path annihilated forever.  Even money itself.  We've never had much and I've worked hard to not focus on money as a source of completion and happiness.  Instead I've tried to just put my head down and work, roast coffee, get new customers, and just do everything as best I can, figuring the money will follow if we just stay true to our core values.  It's worked and we're growing as a business, but the bills always pile up.  In my mind, though, they are gone, immaterial, unimportant.

I've got creditors coming after me, but there's nothing for them to get.  We rent.  My most valuable possessions are my wedding ring & my Droid.  My brother in IT gave me the laptop I'm typing on right now.  My father got the loan for the used car I drive, and I pay him back month to month.  And then last night I took the final step and inadvertently cut all remaining ties to regular-world-life by somehow leaving my car unlocked, and my wallet exposed within.

I'm still not quite sure how I was so completely careless when I am usually exactly the opposite, but there it wasn't this morning when I got in my (father's) car to drive to work.  I hardly ever have cash on me, but last night I did and now it's gone.  I intended to use it tomorrow to pay for the sperm-freeze which is one step of our 3rd IVF attempt, but I'll have to find another couple hundred bucks to make that happen.

Thankfully, one of the things I do still have is a great family so they are going to help, but at this point I think it's more that they have me than I have them.

No license.  No ATM card.  No insurance card.  I've never lost my wallet or had it stolen.  Not once in my 37 years.  I cannot believe I was so stupid to let that happen, but obviously it's not the first mistake I've ever made.  Not by a longshot.  And compared to what I have already lost in my life, a few hundred bucks is essentially absolutely nothing at all.

Perspective is everything, I guess.

My perspective is unlike anything I ever expected.  I'm through the looking glass here.  Everything is gone except the love of my wife, my friends and my family.  I am finally here, all the way through, all the way emptied of objects, of possessions, of expectations, perhaps even of hope.  But it's not even that I'm now hopeless, more that I am completely status quo.  I am now.  I am this.  I am here and alive and I won't ever let that go, but all the extra and all the bullshit and all the everything I can't control it's gone gone gone and that makes me feel good.

My slow coast to this rocky bottom took long enough, but I'm glad to finally touch the bedrock and feel its cool, impenetrable heft.  There's more that could be taken from me, it's true.  Loved ones, my life itself, the clothes on my back, shelter, food, but losing those would destroy me altogether.  The gone-ness I feel is really a slow choice I've made to only hold onto these essential elements.

In order to survive I must love and feel loved.  I must eat and drink and laugh and sleep and shit and piss and cry and breathe.  My heart must pump.  My eyes must look forward and my feet must move me forward to whatever comes next.  But money won't save me.  A bank account won't protect me from the ravages of life.  A flimsy piece of folded leather and an ID tucked within won't hold back the disintegrating Universe.  It's gone, anyway, all of it.

I'm unlabeled, untethered, unincorporated.  I lay on my back on the bedrock of the bottom and look up, far up at the distant sky and streaming clouds and it doesn't matter that I'm on top of a mountain of grief.  My eyes are still open, my heart still beats, my soul still rages with anger and love and anticipation and fear, and nothing can stop Time's hold on my life and the inexorable rise of tomorrow's Sun.  It'll happen even if I don't look at the clock, or at the watch I don't have.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What were some unexpected repercussions of the loss of your child?  What have you let go or held onto since their death?  Do you feel like you're at rock bottom?  What helps get you up?

on the bookshelf

I have one shelf in my library with the books about bulging bellies and chunky babies. Witchy books of herbs for pregnancy and the childbearing years. Academic books about development. Unopened books about sleep training. Bought books about gentleness and discipline. Enlightened books about mindful parenting. Bestseller books about what to freak out about when expecting.

When I came home from birthing my stillborn daughter, my only interest in that shelf and those books was the index and the glossary. Every pregnancy book I opened, I searched the back first, fingers holding the pages of the index that read “Stillbirth,” “Death,” “Grief.” Though I now intimately knew what stillbirth was and what exactly happens medically after your child dies in you, I searched for some nugget of understanding about why Lucy died--the physical and the metaphysical reasons. I dug those meager pages for a prescription for survival. I didn’t want to learn how to deal with my heartburn anymore. I wanted to learn how to deal with my heartbreak. The only question I now had about parenting was “How do I move forward?”

Most of those books start their loss sections with the same obvious sentiment, "Every parent's worst nightmare..." And it was all so pat, so obvious, to someone who has suffered a stillbirth. “Make sure the mother holds the baby. Make sure to take pictures. Make sure to grieve.”

Don’t worry I won’t forget to grieve.

When I realized that every loss from miscarriage to stillbirth to SIDS was wrapped up in a glib two-page section, I started collecting my own books. I have a new shelf now. It started after those pregnancy books failed to offer any solace. And it is no exaggeration that each book on that hulking shelf has given me something. I read a book about how other cultures deal with the death of a child, Sookie Miller’s Finding Hope When a Child Dies, which opened up the universal experience and exposed me to babyloss rituals from around the world. I bought children’s books, like Something Happened, that talked specifically about pregnancy loss and losing a sibling so that I could help explain to my daughter why we were so impossibly sad. Reading Elizabeth McCracken’s memoir Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination made me feel like I walked into my best friend’s home. She made a cup of tea, wrapped me in a quilt and shared my own story, only with more humor, insight and love than I could possibly muster at the time. It was the first time I felt understood intimately by another person. I have spiritual books, like When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön, that gave me Buddhist teachings on fear and loss. It was a book I bought during my grandfather’s death that I rediscovered after my daughter’s. There are books about surviving pregnancy loss, like Empty Cradle, Broken Heart by Deborah Davis, that gave me some reassurance that these feelings were not eternal, that I would find some place of calm eventually. I have collections of poetry about grief and death, like In the Midst of Winter, which were gifts from friends that simply said by dint of their existence, “You are understood.” I eventually added to my collection a book about pregnancy after loss called unsurprisingly, Pregnancy After Loss by Carol Lanham. That shelf held me together some days, reminding me of the universality of my experience. Simply seeing the book titles together in a row, I was reminded that I was not alone.

Some days, honestly, that was enough.

+++

Jessica, librarian and author of Dear Gus, pulled together an incredible collection of books about grief and loss in Glow in the Woods new section, On the Bookshelf. Please visit for a spell, let her know what you think and what books you found helpful in your grief. She will be expanding and adding to this section. We are so appreciative of her insight and librarian superpowers to expand our resources.

Did you turn to books after your loss? What kinds of book were you looking for? What books did you find that resonated with you? What books have been helpful to you in your grief?



food for thought

I remember at some early therapy session, back when I wondered how much of my fee was spent on tissue, that I started going through the list.  You know the list, the list of things that you lost in addition to your baby.  As if that wasn't enough, I also seemed to have misplaced joy, happiness, fun, the ability to communicate with others, a sex drive, a flying poo about my health and hygiene, and taste.

I lost my ability to taste.

"I lost my ability to see in color," admitted my therapist, referring to the period after her mother died.  "It was as if the world was black and white."

+++

I'm not sure when I became a foodie.  I think perhaps it was there, latent, with my careful reading of Bread and Jam for Francis and how I fantasized about elaborate and difficult lunches with doilies and salt and pepper shakers.  I lived on escargot when I went to France at age six.  I dreamed up elaborate picnics with mini quiches in High School.  I fell in love with a foodie, and we spent our Honeymoon at a cooking school in Italy.  We were the odd couple who rarely ate out, made almost everything from scratch, and relished trying new recipes.  When we moved into our new house, in our new city, we were so relieved to finally be in a place where people knew and loved their food.  We started a raging debate in the cell phone store on our third day here when we casually asked where to get the best . . . I honestly can't remember what we asked about. But everyone in the store had an opinion.  We felt as if we were in heaven.

I'm not sure when it hit me, that food was sawdust.  The first few weeks after Maddy died I lived solely on food that people brought over:  cookies for breakfast and lunch, and then I'd pick a bit at a well-intentioned dinner, announce that I was tired and going to bed, and retreat upstairs to cry.  After the gifted food and the freezer stash ran out, I segued into cereal.  That's it, cereal.  I honestly can't remember what I fed Bella or what she would have been eating at that  point in time -- I'm guessing a slew of frozen chicken nuggets and mac&cheez.  My favorite bourbon barbecued chicken may as well have been a soggy bowl of bran.  Everything tasted like cardboard.  

The only thing I could barely perceive was coffee.  I'm not sure if it was the taste or smell per se, maybe just the jolt of caffeine or now that I think about it, the mere act of normal routine and comfort of holding a warm mug .  There were months where the only thing making it possible to swing my feet off the bed and onto the floor was the thought of making coffee.  I drank a lot of it.  I figured it was better than other things I could be drinking.  At some point I realized this probably wasn't the greatest thing I could be doing for myself and decided that in between cups, I needed to drink three glasses of water (and say three hail Marys).  It's a small measure of guilt I carry with me to this day, even though I never make it beyond two.

We didn't eat out.  Not because I didn't want to, or we couldn't, but because I didn't want to waste money on food I wouldn't enjoy.  It's not that I stopped eating, it's that grief masked flavor and thereby erased one of my greatest joys.  My great grandmother lived to be 100, and became extremely depressed right before her death because she lost the ability to taste her food.  I got where she was coming from.

"I remember the day, very vividly," said my therapist, "when I realized I could see colors again."

I'm not sure there was a day, a hammer on the head, or a gelato I could point to, but there was a slow creep.  And a year and four months after Maddy died, a friend took my husband and I out to dinner at a very good restaurant and I realized through the multiple courses and accompanying wine that I could taste again.  I could discern the nuances in the wine, I could decode a sauce. I could enjoy a dish simply sitting over it and inhaling the aroma without even taking a bite.  

I could experience food for the first time in over a year.  It was as if someone colorized the black and white movie my taste-buds had been living in.  Lettuce became green, capers became salty, coffee became lovely. 

Appreciating food again wasn't the pinnacle of recovery by any stretch of the imagination; I still wasn't getting the whole Joy thing.  But it helped considerably to know that grief hadn't completely eradicated something I loved so much, because losing my daughter was miserable enough.

What -- if anything  -- did you lose in addition to your child(ren)?  Have you found it again?

SAHG

Two months before my world went supernova, I got laid off from my job. At the time, we laughed about it. We were just married and just post parent-cancer-scare. Brian was himself post-operative (hernia), and my pregnancy was troubled. Oh, and it was Christmas. So of course I lost my job. Ha, nice one, Universe! What else have you got for us?

We found out, of course.

But then I was so grateful to be out of work. I couldn’t imagine going to an office every day – facing other human beings who knew who I was, and what had happened. Who, God forbid, needed something from me. Lilly, my stepdaughter, was the only person on the planet allowed to need something from me then. I appeared in public only at her school recitals and soccer games, wearing Liz Taylor sunglasses and carrying a bag of knitting projects to bend my head over.

I tried to imagine myself in dress slacks with an armful of file folders where a baby should be and felt nothing but relief at the idea of letting my career slide into oblivion. I collected unemployment. I found freelance work. I stayed home.

* * * * * * * *

There are mile markers on this grief trail. Anniversaries, firsts, a certain number of good days in a row. They exist, I think, to light my path towards some sort of normalcy, and to let me know I’m not out here on the road alone. But when I see one of those markers coming up I just think: No, no, no, fuck no! And I try to slow myself down, but it’s no use. The clock ticks, and my body zips by.

But my heart is torn out all over again—it’s back there in the dark behind me, heels dug in, staring down that marker, refusing to budge. No way. No, sir. I am staying right the fuck here. Because who wants to move one single inch, one single second, further from the last moment they held their baby in their body, in their arms?

So I curse and cry and stomp around for a few days. Eventually, mysteriously, my heart lets go and, in slingshot motion, snaps back into my body, and forward we go. Because, oh hell, there’s nothing we can do about it anyway, and someone’s got to get dinner on the table.

* * * * * * * * *

I did not want a job. I wanted to be home with my baby. With that option gone, I stayed home with my grief for two years. What do you call that? Stay-at-Home-Griever? So when Brian showed me a job listing over Thanksgiving, my reaction was: No, no, no, fuck no! Mile marker ahead.

Photo by mirimcfly.This was a job I could probably get. And if I got it, there would be no reason not to take it. The hours and pay were good. The commute was short. The organization did nice things, like feed homeless people. And it had been almost two years, after all. So I began:

Resume updating (reluctant). Phone interview (heart with heels firmly dug in). In-person interview (denial: I don’t think they liked me). Call back for second interview (Dammit, tears). Job offer (There’s a recession on, so who I am to turn my nose up?). First day (Actually, this could be good).

Thus I have a new job. It’s part-time, with some hours from home, which suits me nicely. The place is chaotic and full of well-intended people who know almost nothing about me, which suits me too. There are no dress slacks to be seen, but I do wake up and put on my game face, and pour a to-go mug, and schlep out into the snow to get some work done in the service of another cause. And it’s kind of fun.

I do worry about my bad days—about being productive through tears, about looking like a mad woman, about one day waking up and being unable to get out of bed. Failing them spectacularly at some critical juncture seems inevitable. And I feel a little guilty—like I am putting my daughter into Griever’s Daycare.

But overall I thought this would be harder. I thought taking a job meant I was putting more of her behind me, or trying to get back to a time before she existed. Then again, I always think that sort of thing when I pass a marker. My heart panics, but when it catches up with reality, everything becomes clear: she is still with me, she is still gone. No more, no less. Wherever I put my heart and my energy now, it is because of her and what she has made me. She can’t possibly be left behind.

* * * * * * * *

How long did it take you to go back to your job (or, unpaid work like volunteering, helping your church/synagogue, sitting on boards, etc.)? How has loss changed your relationship to your work? Has work been a respite or a burden? What your strategies for coping with grief at work?

Live and learn

The naked brutal truth is that what brings us together here is death. Our particular kind of death is disorienting by its very nature, by the timing of its essential untimeliness. But the other truth, one that can be no less brutal, one that seems particularly cruel in those first disorienting days and weeks, is that we are still alive. And so we have to keep going, we have to keep living. The pain with which every breath cuts? That's being alive, that's living after. But so is the eventual realization that it is no longer so, that breathing, and other things, are getting easier.

If you are not there yet, I am so sorry, and I know it's no comfort, this long view.

But this long view is where I am, four years and one day after the birth of my son, four years and two days after his death. I remember clearly that from the very beginning I bristled at anyone suggesting that this--A's death, our grief, the time then-- that this was something we just needed to get through or "live through," as an Old Country idiom goes. You don't get through this, was my retort, you learn to live with it. And so far, at least for myself, it seems that I was right.

Our one year anniversary fell on the first day of class at my then-new job. I wasn't running the course then, and I didn't even need to teach that day. But I found myself so distracted and wiped out in the days leading up to it and on the day itself, that I eventually felt the need to explain what all of that was about to my then-new boss. (Thankfully, that went well, and whatever I may think of my now-former boss, I will always remember his kindness about A.)

Yesterday, three years later, on my drive to the now-new job, I felt the familiar heaviness, familiar tightness-- the sadness, the longing. But then I parked, and I went to work. I talked about atoms, electrons, orbitals, bonds. My computer froze, and while I waited for it to reboot, I picked up the chalk and went on. I emphasized key points, and held the pauses I needed to hold to get the class to engage, to get someone to risk volunteering an answer. I read confusion on their faces and picked up my chalk again, and I drew and talked them to clarity. I explained the changes in schedule due to the past and future snow days and I joked with the class. It was, as far as they knew, just another day in the classroom. That was probably mostly time, mostly the learning to live with that time affords us as days pack into weeks and weeks pack into months. But it felt like a victory, this ability to do my job well even on this day, and it felt hard-won.

And when the class was over, I had something else to look forward to. A task, it occurred to me as I was walking back to my car, something concrete to do, not unlike that day four years before. Then the task was birthing, now-- shoveling.

You see, our cemetery only has the flat to the ground markers (and the vases that you could flip up, but obviously those are down for the season), so when a snowfall covers a section, all you see above the layer of snow are the wooden poles-- markers that the groundskeepers put in to delineate the rows through the winter months. So two years ago, at the two year mark, the winter had been snowy. It's not like we didn't notice, but for some reason, we didn't connect. It occurred to neither of us that if we went to the cemetery on the anniversary, what we'd likely see would be a blanket of snow. Which is, of course, exactly what we saw when we arrived-- snow about knee high and a few poles sticking out to mark the rows.

At first, we thought we'd just let Monkey go and put the flowers over where we estimated the grave should be. We thought she stood the best chance of not sinking into the snow. But she lost her bearings among the white, stopping a good distance from where I thought the grave actually was. And suddenly JD was following her, and then so was I. I wanted to steer them to what I thought would be the right spot. JD wanted Monkey to not feel like she'd gotten it "wrong," and so there was tension, and it felt right to no-one, and we left the flowers where I was sure he was not. Except for the one flower I walked over to the spot I thought was right, and stuck into the snow, all by its lonesome.

I felt like shit. The primal in me said I should know where my child is, I should be able to get to him. Not, you know, to him, but to his grave at least. To make matters worse, that year the anniversary of his death fell on a Friday, and of his birth-- on Saturday. Jewish cemeteries are closed on Saturdays, of course, so we went on Friday afternoon, after Monkey's school let out. So what I was left with, going into the day that marked his birth, was that awful feeling of loss and separation. Compounded-- sure, why not, right?-- by a nice round of stomach bug that swept through the house starting that very evening.

What to do with that feeling? Where to put it? I had only one answer. The next morning, as I was leaving to run some necessary errands, I also packed a small snow shovel, and I drove to the cemetery. I parked by the side gate, and I walked. When I got to the section, I stepped carefully into the footprints we made the day before. I headed for the lone flower, and I dug, carefully, right next to it. You kinda have to know that if I am telling the story, I found the marker right where I dug. If I didn't, the story probably wouldn't mean the same thing to me, and it probably wouldn't be needing telling today. But I did, and I felt that all was now right with the world. Not you know, regular people's world, but the world where one visits their child's grave in the cemetery, that world was now put right. So I sat there for a bit, and moved the flowers to the right spot, picked myself up, walked out, and drove to run those errands.

Fast forward two years, to this January. In the last three weeks we've had three snow days. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out there would be thick layer in the cemetery. This is where I decided that what I wanted to do was shovel ahead of our planned visit. But with minor snowfalls threatened every other day or so, I didn't want to shovel too early. And this brings us back to me getting in the car after my class yesterday. I had a job to do. I and my trusted shovel were going to make it so we could put the flowers right on the marker this year. An hour, I figured, 90 minutes at the outside.

I know I am not alone in feeling that the day he was born was the best of the worst days. I was thinking about just that after my class on the way to my car. From there I went on to contemplate why, if he wasn't born until well into the evening, the whole of that day doesn't seem so bad. The answer, it seemed, was that I had a job to do that day. I had to birth him, and there was work in that, and single-minded concentration, and anticipation. Not entirely unlike what lay in front of me, I realized. A task, physical and defined, requiring concentration and likely not a small amount of determination. A is buried almost at the far edge of the section, so getting to him is not a matter of swinging the shovel a few times. But an hour, I figured, 90 minutes at the outside.

I began to reconsider that estimate as I drove through the cemetery, snowbanks higher than my car in places. Three snowdays in three weeks. Pulling up to the baby section, it looked grim. But as I got out of the car, I noticed a dip in the snowbank a bit in front of me, where the new addition to the baby section was recently cleared. As far as I know, that whole section, about the same size as the original, only has one occupant for now, at least that was the case when last I looked, in late November or so. The dip in the snowbank wasn't just a dip-- from there led a trail of footsteps, human or animal I couldn't really tell, although if I had to bet my life, I would probably go with a deer. The footsteps, as my incredible luck would have it, went right where I needed to go-- toward the back part of the sections, right to where the old and the new meet. From there, I knew, I could dig my way to A's grave.

To understand why I felt so lucky you should probably know that my worst fear as I planned my digging expedition in my head was that I would accidentally dig a path that would have me walking on other graves. The dead, I know, don't care. But I do. The serendipitous footsteps literally showed me another way. I could dig through the new section without worrying where I dug-- I knew about where the new boy is, and the steps steered way clear of that spot, and in the back of the old section I know the locations of the few graves that are there pretty well-- it should be easy for me to avoid them, I reasoned.

Part way through the project I stopped to take a picture. The wider part is me digging to follow the narrow-- what I found there.

It took two hours and fifteen minutes to get all the way to the grave, and to dig around it wide enough for JD, Monkey and me to stand there together. There is a certain dead baby pride in finding that your aim is still true, that even when the snow lies higher than the tops of the marker sticks, you still know exactly where to dig for your son's grave. When it was over I took off my gloves to find that my hands have been stained black-- apparently the lining transfers. And I quickly realized that my feet were soaked through. Neither of these things registered until I was done. Singleminded much? Just a bit, I guess. Though I did stumble upon a few not entirely useless thoughts.

First, by the time I was damn near done, it occurred to me that it was a shame I did all the digging by myself. I've long maintained that the first few days were harder on JD than they were on me. He'd waited through that whole pregnancy to meet his son, and then his son died, and there still was nothing for him to do except bring me water. I, on the other hand, had things to do--give birth, tend to engorged boobs, tend to other parts. Purpose. All he had to do was sit around and breathe the sharp air. And here I was, four years on, occupied with another purposeful endeavor, again by myself. There is clarity in the snow field in front and a shoveled path behind. There is satisfaction in doing what little can be done on a day such as this. And so I felt bad for having that all to myself, and should we encounter another winter generous in snow, I've already suggested to JD that we go shoveling together.

The second not entirely useless thought is really a rather obvious metaphor. But I am going to say it anyway. Driving up to the cemetery I expected to have to lay my own path. It turned out that I didn't have to, at least not all the way. I found a trail to follow, though I still had to put in considerable work to get to where I needed to go. And that reminded me that though it may feel like it, we are never the first to walk the path of baby loss, and, sadly, we will not be the last. We each have a unique trajectory, but others have passed nearby. Sometimes their presence or their footsteps are obvious, and we find comfort in that obviousness. Other times, the presence of others is but a shadow, a divergent trail going off into the woods, an echo of voices carried on the wind.

And at the risk of clubbing this metaphor into complete unusability, we may not know when or how, but we each make it slightly easier, slightly more bearable for someone else at some point. Whether it is because our words, typed in anger or sadness, or joy, or longing and released to the wilds of the internets hit the spot with someone somewhere, or because we once said something to someone that caused them to be more considerate of others. Or even because if we are so lucky as to become pregnant again one day, we tend to walk tenderly with it, mindful of both the fragility of what we carry in us and of the potential hurt that seeing another's happiness may bring. And so, as we've said many a time to each other, I am so sorry you have a reason to be here, but I am so glad you found us. 

How long has it been for you? What traditions have you developed so far? Have there been others who've helped you along the way?