Even then, in the midst of the before, I had light in my eyes. I buried myself in my career, and spent my days planning adventures with my husband. In retrospect, maybe they were distractions. But the laughter outweighed almost everything, and I was relatively content with the person staring back at me in the mirror during that period of my life. I slept through the night. Something I wish I hadn’t taken for granted then.
Read MoreIt’s terrifying to live this way, to have your faith and naiveté crushed in one violent instant. To be truly certain, deep in your bones, that nothing can protect you. That tragedy can strike any one of us at any second. But maybe it’s liberating, too. Because if you believe that you can ensure you own good luck by praying, or eating salads, or surrounding yourself with the right crystals, then it holds that people make their own bad luck, too. It’s scary here on the other side. Most people don’t want to join me, and I don’t blame them. I miss that feeling of comfort and certainty about the future that I used to have. But I can’t go back.
Read MoreThis here is a record. A record in time. December 2, 2019. Two thousand eight hundred and eighty-one days after I stepped away from that blinking cursor and a soon-to-be past life, one hand on my belly, willing her to move. I cue up the interview recording again. A moment where we are both laughing raucously at something only a bereaved mother a certain distance out can laugh at. And then we are serious again. We say his name. We say her name. We’re creating a record, carrying it forward, together.
Read MoreThe last night I am with him, we crowd onto his narrow hospital bed. I spend hours touching and memorizing his face, his hands, his toes. We relish these memories, as impossible as they are. They are the only connection between our babies and us, their parents—a nightmare and a life preserver all at the same time.
Read MoreJesús never wanted to bring us sadness. Like any child, he wanted to be loved and celebrated for who he was. After those first aching months, my heart recalibrated. It is a different heart from the one I had before him. Perhaps it is more reluctant to hope for things, sometimes more fearful for the future. And yet it’s a heart that knows love can be found in even the darkest of places.
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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