Parenting your dead child is like painting by numbers but there are no numbers to paint by. All the rules and directions have been lost. How does one know what color comes next? What is the image we are trying to complete when the baby we grew, died? We are left guessing. What would their favorite color be? Is purple supposed to fill in this space? What about green?
Read MoreLittle missives from beyond time and space
Afloat on currents of molecules, suspended in the gaseous elements…?
Too fanciful, I think, too cute. Too good to be true.
I find myself listening for them, though, despite my better judgment,
On the off chance, that maybe, just maybe, there’s something there.
sometimes I pull out
my old map of the world
it’s foreign now, but recognizable
the familiar landscapes are still there
I just can’t visit them anymore
For my sixth birthday, my parents surprised me and took me to a bubble show (that’s actually what it was called) where a woman literally put herself inside a giant bubble. I remember thinking how safe she looked. Nothing could touch her. Bubbles were safe.
Read MoreI was the barn beside an old road,
stuffed with hay and cats and oats
filled with rays of sunshine,
spiders on all my wooden bones.
The shock of this trick is something I have not been able to overcome in six years. That I fell for the trap. I have heard from babyloss parents how the loss of their baby in an otherwise uneventful life, at the end of an uncomplicated pregnancy was like being hit in the face by a bolt of lightning. I get that shock that jolts you out of the naivete. I understand how ridiculous it must be, when you don’t know the “other,” and suddenly the “other” becomes you.
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.
: 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
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