The previous owners lost a child. The woman who lived here is a social worker and specializes in infant and child loss, which we only found out after we signed the sale contract and googled her name. I wonder if they lost a child, my husband and I said to each other then, and our suspicions were confirmed by the handyman who stopped by to remove a memorial stone from the back meadow. Eerie, that connection. The space readied for our exact sorrow.
Read MoreI drive my husband to the train and wave at my neighbors as they deposit their kids on the bus. The neighbors smile and wave back, but their smiles are tinged with sadness. Instead of thinking, What a sweet young couple!, I’m sure they’re thinking, That poor, poor sweet young couple.
Read MoreSixteen years have passed since I lost a baby. I’m now solidly in middle age, and I no longer keep an ‘unthinkable’ file. Humans suffer all kinds of pains and traumas, and somehow we endure. I’ve come to accept that life is many things—mysterious, unpredictable, painful, and beautiful—but fair, it is not. And that’s okay.
Read MoreIt tapered off slowly, the writing. I’d find myself starting a new post with the bemused observation that it had been two months since I’d last written. Then it had been three months, then five, and now I might write twice a year. The last post was for her birthday. January. The only post this year. It’s been a crazy year, this one. But still, I wonder what happened to time when I passed it all writing. Where did I find it that time? What did I ignore or neglect or simply cease to notice while I was writing? How is grief so all-consuming and then one day… it’s not?
Read MoreI sat with it on my lap, my hands resting on the cover, my eyes closed. My throat closed up and I felt tears sting my eyes, all from touching it. This journal has become a visceral talisman of all those emotions that are too big for me to hold inside of myself. So they live here. Safely tucked away, but still with me.
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.
what is this place?
the contributors
comment policy
contact
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.
: for one and all
: ttc | pregnancy | birth after loss
: not ttc | infertility after loss
: parenting after loss
: on the bookshelf
: how to stop lactation when there is no baby
: how to help a friend through babyloss
: how to plan a baby's funeral
subscribe
COPYRIGHT © 2019 GLOW IN THE WOODS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO UNAUTHORIZED REUSE.
