- James Isaac, stillborn on March 17, 1999
- Panya Ruth, miscarried on November 10, 1999
- Anna Rose, miscarried on November 22, 2005
Now, before you go attempting to correct me and bring out your Bibles and your scriptures and your examples of how things get better as time goes on and so on and so forth, etc., etc., etc., let me ask you a question: Did YOU grow your heart inside your body only to find out at the end of nine months that instead of bringing your heart home and loving him/her and watching him/her grow up to be a wonderful young man/woman, you had to bury him/her into a dark, scary, hole and walk away? And then you had to watch and pray that you didn't flush your baby down the toilet?! Or any of the other number of horrors that come with child loss???
No?
For those moms who are with me, you know and understand that the grief goes on. Forever. Does it mean that we'll forever lie in our beds, never getting up and out and about? Of course not.
What Forever Grief means for us is that as the children of our friends grow up, we are imagining what our babies would have been like "If Only. . ." things had been different for us. Mom, as you get yelled at for breastfeeding in public, we're simply wishing we could breastfeed.
As you get to wipe your baby's face after s/he's eaten spaghetti for the first time and you laugh at the mess, we try to smile through our tears as we think about our son/daughter laughing and enjoying spaghetti for the first time.
Or when your son/daughter makes the ball team and you complain about his/her dirty uniform--again, we are wishing we had a dirty uniform to clean. We'd LOVE to have a dirty uniform to clean. The dirtier the better, in fact.
Is that your little girl/boy squealing in glee on the swing who you're trying to tell to calm down because it's just a swing? We're wishing our little girl/boy could swing on the swing and squeal as loud as s/he wanted. We'd let her/him swing as high as the sky, jump off, and catch her/him while we squealed and laughed right along with her/him.
Did your son or daughter just graduate? Did s/he walk across the stage, lift his/her arms proudly, pumping them to be sure everyone saw him/her and make the principal shake his head with a smirk, embarrassing you while you couldn't help laughing? We're just wishing our son/daughter was here, too. S/He was supposed to be in the same graduating class with your boy/daughter. But s/he's not. No walk across the stage. No graduation. No diploma. No college. No future.
No marriage.
Yes, you grew your heart inside your body, too, but at least yours is walking around outside your body for you to see. To touch. To hold. To discipline. To cuddle. To watch movies with. To hug. To love. Daily.
Mine isn't. So a little compassion please when the tears still flow even though it's been 19 years (for me). Or 30 years for my friend. Or 52 years for my sister-friend I've met recently. And it doesn't matter if our babies were infants or older.
I know that there are those who feel the same way about the death of a loved one who is not a child. I am not challenging that. May God bless you. I am only sharing my heart and asking for a little compassion for those of us (any and all of us) who do continue to grieve our losses. I kindly ask the rest of you to quit making us feel as if we have to put our masks on--to perform--for you because we're having a difficult day.
You know what?? IT IS OK FOR ME TO STILL BE GRIEVING. Get over yourself. I don't have to "get over it." YOU DO.
You don't have to be afraid of me when I cry, Friend. Just hold my hand or rub my back or even just hand me a tissue and sit with me. It's ok. I'll be ok in a few moments. Crying is good. It's healing. "It has to hurt if it's to heal!" (The Neverending Story)
Don't worry. I haven't lost my JOY. Remember: I have to experience true sadness in order to know and understand true JOY. So let me experience the sadness. My JOY will be more JOY-FULL as a result. xoxoxo
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