The One Who Got Away

I’ve been on edge since Friday…it’s something in the air, or by now perhaps it’s in my blood.  This time of year leaves me in a deeply melancholy mood and zaps all energy and life from me.

April 28, 2006…that date is permanently burned into my being.  A long night of cramps, bleeding, and eventually an emergency D&C to stop my hemorrhaging.  We said goodbye to a baby we never truly got to meet that early morning.  I was young and scared to death, but we had gotten over the shock of our pregnancy and were excited.  Just thirteen weeks in and we were forced to say goodbye to the tiny being that forever changed us both.

Miscarriage…it’s a word I know all too well.  One full of pain, bitterness, and a certain loss of hope.  I’ve had several and am lucky to have the two beautiful boys I spend my days raising.  They are light and a renewal of hope that I never thought I would know.  Yet the darkness often remains.

Most days, I’ve put all my losses behind me.  I am content to dream of my lost babies as angels who watch over us.  When this time of year (or any other in which I’ve lost a child) rolls around the hopelessness seeps in and I find it hard to ignore.  Forgive my moodiness, my snappiness, my distant eyes.  There’s a part of me that is missing right now.

It’s funny because I don’t even have to look at a calendar to tell you.  Sometimes I’ll notice my sudden lack of energy, lack of interest, and when I finally look at a calendar, there it is.

When we experience any loss, we’re given a certain amount of time to grieve and then we’re expected to move along with life.  And so that’s what we do.  But loss and grief forever change people.  You can change for the good or for the worse.  Sometimes I think parts of us change in both ways.  Through loss I’ve found perseverance I didn’t know I had.  Determination, courage, strength.  I’ve also found bitterness that I doubt I’ll ever fully brush aside.  I’ve developed a numbness that gives the appearance of a cold, lonely soul at times.  I’ve melded with the change – good and bad.

What would that enigmatic little being be like today if s/he had lived here on earth?  Working on their eighth year of life…Perhaps with two little brothers or would their presence have changed the entire course of our history?  That is something I will never know.  I would never change the life I have or the children that I have been blessed to have in it.  But it won’t stop my wondering mind when the sadness of that day creeps back in year after year.

What have I learned from miscarriage?  What has it taught me about life and moving forward when a part of me wants to cling so badly to what can never be?  I’ve learned that you will hurt more than you ever knew you could and long for someone whose heartbeat you only heard once.  You will dream dreams where that lost soul is so real that it chills you to your bones.  You will know that spirit baby came down to hold YOU while you slept, because you lost the chance to ever hold them.

You will learn of light, laughter, and happiness when you find a place that finally allows you to move on, but not forget.  Your innocence to the beauty and perfection of pregnancy will be forever lost, but my God you will learn the incredible power that life truly is.  You will see how valuable, how fleeting, and how precious LIFE really is.

Sweet child, you will forever be the one who got away from me…The connection I hold to you both takes and gives me my sanity.  You make me a better mother…and I pray your light lives on in your brothers’ eyes.  I’ve seen it there and I intend to keep that happy glimmer alive until the day that I meet you again.  I pray they meet you one day far, far away and that we all finally get to be together as the family that was never meant to be on this earth.