A BIRTH NOT SHARED

This week is Baby Loss Awareness week.

I guess one can only really empathize if you’ve been in that position.

To lose your child while still in the womb.

To never get to see him or tell her how much you love her.

To have been touched by their presence in such a profound way and yet to have no one to show for it.

It’s an invisible grief shared only by those who were present.

Shared only by those who could sit with your pain as well as their own.

Seen only by those who cared or dared witness the absence.

The tendency is to encourage us to move on, to try for the next one, to forget and to not speak of it again.

What’s the point of dwelling over what has not existed right?

Our society does not sit comfortably with grief and loss.

We’d all rather be happy. It’s easier right?

And yet how can we be truly happy if we have not acknowledged the depth of our pain?

How can you sit with another’s grief if you have not sat with your own?

The depth of grief can span a lifetime. It can be passed down from generation to generation of women. At least seven generations they say.

When my ovaries were forming I was floating in the juices of my mother’s grieving womb and she in her mother’s and she in hers.

I’ve lost a child before I ever got to see her.

And I lost my twin before anyone got to know about him.

I carry the imprint of children in my womb who never got to see the light of day because the Catholic Patriarchy of Ireland did not allow it.

Who ever does speak of the ‘illegitimate’ ones?

The ones who were not seen nor heard. Who dares break the deafening silence?

I have been grieving all my life not knowing where the depth of this sadness came from.

I have shed tears and held onto the pain while those around me moved on.

I’ve sat with my grief to the brink of insanity.

But at least now I know why.

Now, I am in a better position to serve my purpose.

Now I am free to speak about it in the open not caring what others think.

Now I am free to lighten my load for it is a story told.

These are my scars, my wounds, my badges of honor that come not from war.

These are the makings of my wisdom, my medicine, the depth of my love.

A love that runs so deep it transcends time and space.

I love you forever.

And it is so that now you exist.