Letting Go
/I let her, in a square white box, go become her absence. I let her breath go, the light from her eyes go. I let her tiny body go cold, stiff, bitter. I let seasons, lives, this earth, go on without her.
Read MoreI let her, in a square white box, go become her absence. I let her breath go, the light from her eyes go. I let her tiny body go cold, stiff, bitter. I let seasons, lives, this earth, go on without her.
Read MoreI am hibernating. In summer, in broad daylight. In the middle of the week, in the throes of work. When the world is buzzing around me like a bee in spring, all I want to be is a neatly-curled squirrel in winter. The world is spinning, and no matter how much we try, it’s still impossible to turn time back or sprint it forward. In the middle of all this, in a thorny cage of prickly ‘aspects’ trying to make me care, I am stuck. I am dumbstruck, even as I gently flap my wings and blink my timeless eyes.
Read MoreMy heart pumps bigger on this staging ground not in spite of what I have seen, but because of it. Thanks to it. We exist in a stand of unanswerable questions that would make all the Betsys turn to stone and yet here we are: bruised, yeah. Bit of a temper. But carving it out ourselves, our fortitude. And it's beautiful.
Read MoreUs mortals, we like to fathom. Make sense. Calculate. Depend on. Plan. We accept that being derailed is part of the journey, and getting back on track reinforces the predictability, the reliability of life. But when life just becomes one derailment after another, do you create a different path?
Read MoreThis is the consolation prize awarded to every bereaved parent: the mind’s ceaseless spinning, conjuring all the myriad ways your baby could die, backed by the hard-won knowledge that it most certainly could happen to anyone at any moment, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. Of course, this is a truth universal to all parents. This is why the horror genre has always been so effective: at its core, a thriller is an allegory for raising children in a world where, in truth, we have absolutely zero ability to keep them safe.
Read MoreSome days I prefer the ocean floor. The quiet and the dark and the endless space soothing, instead of terrifying. Looking at the infinite abyss in all directions, there is a peace in knowing that I am very much alone down there, knowing that my actions and inactions can’t hurt anybody else. Better to be chained to the ocean floor, drowning in all that Karma’s accusing me of, than to break the surface and tempt fate.
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.
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