There is a road that leads to my childhood hometown that slices a path through fields of mint. I used to yell at whoever was driving to roll their windows down, even in the heat of summer, when we’d get to that specific spot where I knew the air would be filled with the sweetest fragrance imaginable. It wasn’t the
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“Have you noticed that people aren’t sending us holiday cards?” I quizzed my husband, just two days before Christmas. “We’ve gotten several.” He held up a pile of the carnage, barely looked through but evidence of their existence was found in shades of crimson and green. We had gotten some. I knew this. I glanced over them when they arrived and
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Sixteen days have passed since she was born. Twenty one since we learned that she was no longer alive. Today is the first time that I opened up the mailbox to see only bills peering back at me. No cards. No gifts. The gas bill is late. My oldest told me that she misses her. I believe she means it
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If grief is a checklist then I am winning. Counseling. Support group. Making myself leave the house at least once a day. If grief is a sprint then I am losing. The tears haven’t slowed. The pain hasn’t subsided. I feel further behind one week later, or is it two? An eternity, it seems. If grief is a research paper
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They call it the silent sorrow. The unspoken grief that parents go through with pregnancy loss and stillbirth. Silent because nobody speaks it? Or silent because nobody wants to hear it? What should we say, really, to make ourselves louder and somehow more defined? Cry louder? Yell harder? Scream at strangers in parking lots? What should I say when the
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When we were in the hospital the Chaplain brought us coloring pages. My nurse, who helps grieving parents, told me that for some women coloring is the closest they can get to finding a ‘nothing place’. A nothing place is where you go to not feel the pain all around you. It helps you survive the burning house. So I try
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Chop Wood, Carry Water 