A year and 3 days ago we buried the remains of our little son.
I wanted to start this post that day. I wanted to start this post a month earlier, actually, February 15th, to remember the first anniversary of when I birthed his body. If I’m honest I really wanted to start writing this September 15th, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows and his due date. Truly though, I wanted to start recording some words weeks and weeks before that, after the summer drive to visit the cemetery, when I first heard “Blue Flower” come up on a playlist and speak the movement in my heart. That song was the first time any written or spoken language came close to describing the utter ache and longing for this person I could not touch or hold close. Part of me wishes I had put pen to paper even before that, during the many many many days and weeks of bleeding, both after and before his heart stopped beating. It would be a way to make tangible an experience, a reality, that now seems surreal to me and ancient history for others.
The pain has always been too raw, though, and inner the resistance too strong and the quiet space too limited to record the details. I have no self-judgment on that. Only great compassion for a grief-stricken mother. I’m offering her a long tight hug and a stronger hand to squeeze. There were moments that seemed suffocating and totally unbearable. But we did bear them, dear girl. So many turned up rearview mirrors so the other children didn’t have to be concerned about the red eyes and waterfalls of tears. The solo country drive sobs. I’m proud of us for surviving this.
I don’t understand how miscarriage can feel like an untouchable gray cloud when there was just so much red blood. Bright red, pink red, brown red… so many days of unavoidable trips to the bathroom for analysis and agony.
How can having him and losing him feel so incredibly surreal when nothing could be more real than the lump that forms in my throat. When my arms and chest live with this otherwise unexplainable pulse of energetic awareness of his absence. Like they know on a cellular level they are supposed to be feeling his warmth and weight in my embrace.
Baby, I miss you with all of me. I don’t know how to be your mother without getting to care for you in all the physical ways, without getting to attune to your emotions, give you the best of me. How do I know you without knowing you? I can’t watch your tummy rise and fall to your breathing, I can’t smell my milk on your neck. What would your sweet gummy smile have looked like? What sounds would you have made in your sleep or when something in your sight caught your delight? It’s a stabbing piercing pain to imagine caressing your fresh fingers and to watch your tiny toes curl around my own wrinkled pointer finger. The only consolation is this certainty Mary is holding you for me. I don’t know how to be your mother without you– only that I’ll keep loving you with all of me, always. I thank God you exist. I know you matter , more than I’ll ever get to know. Knowing your soul is with our Lord makes me yearn to be with you at Mass this Holy Week… please pray for us to be in heavenly glory together someday, please son.
A part of me wants to write how it all happened… really maybe only in case a reading sister needed that sort of play-by-play to get through or process her own baby’s loss. But the hot tears that come even now… a year later, are too blinding. The gnawing on my heart is still too fierce to go back and face those minutes of labor that felt like an eternity. Maybe one day it’ll be necessary and doable. Lord, you lead me.
Blue Flower by the Gray Havens
I saw you blue flower
And who’s to say
Where you come from
Feels like far away
I felt you blue flower
In my soul
You got me longin’
For somethin’ more
Now I want somethin’ more
Where are you blue flower
Come back and stay
Cuz’ I can’t find anything
Better than this ache
I had to find you
I had to see you
I couldn’t let you go
If only I could finally reach you
The gardens where you grow
I had to find you
I had to see you
I couldn’t let you go
If only I could finally reach you
The gardens where you grow
Now I want somethin’ more
Now I want somethin’ more
Miscarriage Resources
Grieving Together: A couple’s journey through miscarriage
Filumena bereavement resources
Please reach out if you are losing or have lost a baby, and need either resources or a friend to care and pray for you. <3
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