October 15

A day to remember;
Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.

There is this poem by Seamus Heaney, called "Elegy for a Still-Born Child", that I would like to share. I of course don't have the rights to post it all here, but you can check out this link to read the whole poem.

The story goes like this; Seamus Heaney had a friend who was expecting a child. But then, the child passed away before it was born. Heaney, though he did not experience this directly, still mourned for that child. He mourned for his friend, and what they went through, and all the things that went wrong, that never should have.

There is a section of that poem that always catches in my throat, it sums up the emotions of child-loss so well. It says,

"On lonely journeys I think of it all,
Birth of death, exhumation for burial,
A wreath of small clothes, a memorial pram,
And parents reaching for a phantom limb."

The loss of a child is the loneliest journey of all. Things that we don't normally think about in unison, come colliding together with painful clarity- birth and death, joy replaced with sorrow, objects that should have been brought to use, now bring the pain of stasis- the child who had made it's home within us, tragically leaves us.

And the child, the child we never get to see, touch, hear, caress, for the rest of our lives- we always reach for them- like a phantom limb. Nothing ever seems right, because that child is gone, and it was such a part of us- and even once gone, will always be a part of us. No matter much time passes, you still remember what it was like and keep reaching for them, because that kind of love never goes away.

Today I am remembering my two lost ones, gone far to soon.
I'm remembering my neice, whose heart beat one day, but not the next- stillborn at full term.
My aunt who was stillborn- who my grandmother never stopped loving and missing.
Today I'm remembering the losses of all my friends online, and in real life.

I will be lighting my candle at 7pm in their honor.

Please, take a moment and remember with us.