His little body was slippery on mine / Tumbled gently from my chest to my belly / As I slept / And I so desperately wanted the warmth of my body / To heat his / Which of course couldn’t happen because / I understand science.
Read MoreThere is so much under the surface. So much. One doesn’t have to have buried a kid to know that. For me though these last months have been a reminder that this bit of wisdom applies to most everyone and most everything. I’ve also been reminded about how difficult it is to be in whatever moment we’re in, how much we crave forward progress.
Read MoreJoy was something I didn’t think I’d experience again six years ago, but it was there waiting for me to find it again. There are still days I discard it like an enemy, when I am reminded, of what the cost of unbridled joy was. It’s been almost six years, little one, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss you or want you here.
Read MoreI decorate your nursery with the utmost care—the perfect crib, the daintiest florals. Yet a dream lingers, smoky and yearning, blooming between the flowers at my fingertips: blue walls instead of pink, sporty decals in animal shapes. Months of planning: the registry, the baby shower. The first one is so special, he deserves a big audience.
Read MoreThen when he was three-and-half years old, his sister died. She went away on a summer morning, and never reappeared. Suddenly from the edge of the carpet, someone could leap to the end of the universe, to a place no one has seen, and no one ever comes back from. He did not understand what death was, or how far it took our little baby. But he loved trains, so his sister, who was the little El train running parallel to him, the bigger Metra, just “went ahead to the next station.”
Read MoreEvery now and then, I come across a community or a room that feels comfortable in its sass. There’s a certain rebellious streak I need to note, if it’s going to have the fortitude to include me. Us. It’s got to be a reclamation of sorts, a straight-forward pride of a weird sort that flies in the face of the western world’s oppression of anything real or raw. Modern Loss is one of those places, like ours but a bigger tent. Hop over there to read my thoughts on some intention-setting heading into the New Year—just for us.
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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