April fool

/
April fool

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 More

In response to June

/
In response to June

This week two readers of the book I wrote about life after loss got in touch to say what amounted to the same thing. One with an offhand comment, and the other with a handwritten two-page letter: You may not know where your baby has gone, but I do. Here’s the secret. God will save you from grief. Am I the caged animal, or are they? Which one of us eats better—the one who forages, or the one who is fed?

Read More

The tightrope

/
The tightrope

I accept the fact that I cannot protect my child when lightning strikes; when sudden accidents upturn your life in the blaze of a vicious wildfire, a sudden devastating car crash, the inexplicable ceasing of breath from a child's lips... Yet in the natural order of things, she may just be okay. I clutch to that frail hope, as fervently as I hold her to my chest, whispering in her ear about how she is loved and protected, for just a precious moment more, and another moment after that.

Read More

The wheel and the windmill

/
The wheel and the windmill

From afar, and recently, on my trip to India, in person, my Hindu family, friends, neighbors, well-wishers from every sphere of my past, have been swearing on the karmic cycle, the soul, the wheel. Many of them have referred to Raahi as a “liberated soul,” one who has attained moksha or nirvana. I am grateful. It should be enough. The compassion, a heavy sigh, wordlessness. But few people stop at that.

Read More