Warning and apologies, this post may be very painful to read, as I share how I lost my first child and my last child. It was painful to write, yet in writing I find comfort, so I do.
Had she lived, my oldest daughter would have been twenty-one years old now.
My youngest, lost in early pregnancy, would have been a few months old.
I am the mother of five children, although my first and my last are not alive. I lost a baby last spring, in June, in the early months of the pandemic. In between the two children I never had a chance to know, I have been blessed, incredibly blessed, to welcome into the world three wonderful souls.
Today is a beautifully complicated day for me, one filled with joy and sorrow; it is one where the past dances with the present. I sit on the edge of the dancefloor looking at and admiring how imperfectly life unfolds.
As I woke, just after 5 am this morning, my mind remembered the little knit sweater I keep hidden away. It’s one of the many pieces of clothing I got for my first daughter, perhaps too early, in joyful anticipation of being a mama. It took me years to forgive myself for being too young back then to understand that not all babies make it. Or that you could still lose a child after the first trimester. I didn’t know how delicate life was, and that from one day to the next, she could be gone.
I’ve learned as I’ve lived that time should never be taken for granted. In many ways I’m glad I didn’t know that in pregnancy sometimes one ought to be cautious with their hopes. I’m glad I leaned into motherhood, despite being young and the pregnancy being unexpected. Because I didn’t know to be weary I enjoyed a few months of dreaming. That time was a gift.
She was already gone when I went into spontaneous labour. I knew this. Try as I might I could not stop my body from birthing her. By the time the ambulance arrived, I had a few minutes to hold her tiny body and a chance to say goodbye. I handed her to the paramedics never to see her again.
I’m bracing myself to move through this day, to be self-compassionate and to allow whatever emotions come to come. My kids have already showered me with drawings, arts n’ crafts, and treats, which made me so happy. We laughed over breakfast and played, and then they scattered, jumping back in front of their screens.
I returned to bed and cried alone. It was okay to do this because it was what I needed in that moment.
Grief and gratitude exist inside me together.
Then came the sound of their laughter, coming from downstairs. I could hear their bickering about who did what to who on Roblox. The girls’ delightful screeching was occasionally overshadowed by their older brother spontaneously shouting to his friends as they play COD online. I let the sadness float away and rejoined the present. I listened in on the sounds of my home, the sounds of my heart, and I felt grateful.
In a few minutes I’m going to drive to the cemetery to visit my mama. That’s not to say I can’t and don’t feel her everywhere, I do, but there is something about being in the spot where her body lays that comforts me. I’ll sit on the grass in front of her headstone and we’ll talk, like we did, many years ago.
We are mere blades of grass, swaying in the wind. I have not broken, not even under the weight of so much grief, but I am altered. I am changed…
by the mother I had for too short a time,
the children I am blessed to mother,
and the children I have lost.
