Each day since Olivia died, I’ve considered what it means to be a parent to a child no one else can see. Even I can only see her in my mind, but she’s there, the primary variable in our family calculus. No matter how many more children I have, the number people see – the number I see – will be n-1. Always missing one.
Read MoreThe 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 MoreThey held hands and promised to meet again to stare at nothing—to share their experiences, stories and memories. In time, their circle grew. Other women joined them, and they built a fire on colder days. None of them had asked to be in this tribe, but they were.
Read MoreThe day she died, I felt an ache in my heart. It intensified day by day month by month, and year by year it grew stronger. The ache was crippling and I curled up in a ball of hurt from which there was no escape. No amount of medication could ease the hurt. I feel it still, in my heart where she lives.
Read MoreSometimes we simply grab the person next to us and thrust a memory-strand into their hands, begging 'Hold this for a minute, please'. Letting go is, after all, exactly what it would mean to stop mentioning or remembering them altogether. The world expects us to let go of the little memory net that holds our child from falling deeper into the abyss. It shouldn't, but it does.
Read MoreIt was only in that moment, ten years later, that I figured out why I did it. Why I circled the NICU like an animal, fending off every other lens. It was for Ben, for his ballast. So that someday, he might attach Liam’s humanity back to him, like Peter Pan’s shadow, despite all the rest.
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
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: not ttc | infertility after loss
: parenting after loss
: on the bookshelf
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: how to help a friend through babyloss
: how to plan a baby's funeral
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