Living with Child-loss

There’s a strange new reality that has come to me after being in the darkest of places. My eyes have adjusted a bit now, after 7 years and some light has trickled down. Some clear days I can even crawl out and feel the warmth of sunlight on my skin again.  

I fell here when my baby’s heart sputtered and stopped - reality and illusion collided into darkness and crushing pain

and as I held her beautiful broken body 

she paused, too long

in an unnatural stillness 

and we had to leave her, and then place her down - too far down, into the messy earth - too covered up

I don’t remember much from those first days, weeks, months, years - my memories are an abstract painting 

But I remember feeling a constant scream - sometimes it would break through and become audible - it seemed as a gaping hole had been torn out of reality and my body. The first night she lie there, in the cold ground, 15 blocks away, I wanted so viscerally to climb over the cemetery gates, with a big warm blanket and place it gently over the earth between us. I remember having to consciously remind myself she didn’t need that kind of care from me anymore, and part of me didn’t quite understand how it was possible. Wasn’t my baby lying sleeping in her bed a few days ago? 

I remember waking up for months to a tangible nightmare, the awful reality of what happened crashing down on me like a catastrophic tsunami in the transient moments as I woke in the morning. I longed for the sweet naivety sleep would bring. 

I still cherish the memories of her sweet cheeks, those tiresome tumultuous months spent in serving love, I savored every thought I could hold - clung on to it. But even these very memories - the last of her, have worn threadbare. 

Now, in the cozy bedtime moments with her sisters, I try to articulate her beauty, her fragility, or vast depths of our love for our miracle baby. I offer up these paper-thin memories, often to blank stares or requests for pet stories. The ocean of her loveliness doesn’t quite fit in those spaces. 

All around the world buzzes with empty tradition and futile social posturing and hustle and bustle of the capitalist sort. It still seems like child’s play most days, fashions comically fading out and in, kingdoms rising and falling, tens of millions, billions of lives there and gone in a flash. Regularly I find myself feeling caked with face paint and made up to fit the theme of the show. 

And still - these passing moments right here in front of me, sustained by the small movement of air through my body: Breath in - breath out - the ones with silly giggles and kind gestures and warm snuggles, with genuine words and gentle honesty, with grace and forgiveness at the ready, with nourishing food and heartfelt prayers, with the floodgates of tears unrestrained  

These moments are strung out like pearls 

Little shining orbs - that might had slipped away before, passed unnoticed

Or even thrown away to the swine 

They shine like stars now

I spend my days savoring them, as they too slip away so quickly 

So many of those moments I thought we’d get to share 

Poured out when Noelle died 

I still find myself grasping for those lost ones, while savoring those slipping through my fingers.