I was your world / And you were so fucking small / And even smaller when you were born / 23 weeks and 5 days / Creases on your hands and soft dark hair just beginning to grow from your sweet head / And I loved you as hard as starlight / As close as the water
Read MoreI read each memory and realized the depth of love we hold for our children. It doesn't matter how long we held them, whether they died in utero or in NICU, the important thing is that they were loved and still are. A love like that cannot be questioned. It simply is the most beautiful and natural thing in the world.
Read MoreThe love for our children is eternal, existing amidst the fringes of lie and death. Yet the love can never be separated from the pain. To love them is to grieve them, a heavy choice that we have grown to accept. If I can embrace the blissful memory of my son, I will gladly take the pain alongside it—whether an echo, or a shout, his existence is real, and he is loved.
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 one week away from the release of my fourth book—my first for adults, and first non-fiction—NOTES FOR THE EVERLOST: A FIELD GUIDE TO GRIEF. I’m spinning. Nervous-spinning. Beset with twitches and dreams of falling and thick with memories and gratitude. Shambhala, my publisher, worked with me to prep for this busy season, and they said: We know you’re a photographer, and that’s great—how about videos? Readings, excerpts, that kind of thing. Can you do that? Always that same moment, the pause of the bereaved. How much can I say? How warm is this room?
Read MoreI’ve abandoned most hopes of fitting in with ‘normal’ anything. I still come to Glow seeking the solace of strangers who understand, a refreshing contrast to people who can’t relate (at least, not yet), and to whom I cannot relate either (at least, not anymore). The line that used to feel like a demotion is now a truth I own, believe, and even embrace. You’re right, I’m not one of you.
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.
what is this place?
the contributors
comment policy
contact
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
: ttc | pregnancy | birth after loss
: not ttc | infertility after loss
: parenting after loss
: on the bookshelf
: how to stop lactation when there is no baby
: how to help a friend through babyloss
: how to plan a baby's funeral
subscribe
COPYRIGHT © 2019 GLOW IN THE WOODS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO UNAUTHORIZED REUSE.
