A new me...

How did I get here? How did I possibly survive to this point? Nearly three months ago, my son died inside me just after he edged into the "early term" stage of our pregnancy. I was 37 weeks and 3 days pregnant. I gave birth to my precious boy but I never heard him cry. I never looked into his eyes. I never breastfed him as his little legs kicked happily. I never dressed him or bathed him. I never clipped his little nails or fussed over his seatbelt. I never blew on his face to watch his eyes and lips flash a smile back at me. I never lost any of his socks. I never showed him the ocean. And I will never pick slobbery cheerios out of my hair...

What I wouldn't give for any one of those things right now. Just one look into his eyes, just a pinch of a tiny toe between my fingers, to smell his little head and nuzzle his soft body close to mine. OH! How I long for those things now that he is gone from my arms forever. A lifetime of dreams, vanished. If you never lost a child, these words may get you a little choked up. Maybe you even cried a little? Now multiply that pain times a thousand because it actually is your son and you actually are facing the rest of your life without him. That's where I was, and that is where I am. And anyone who reads this who has also had the misfortune of losing a child is feeling this same enormous and indescribably painful loss. No one asks for this, but the sad truth is that many people live with it.

At first, I remember thinking, "how could this happen? how is this even possible?" and answering simply "I don't know, but it's real." I kept reassuring myself and those around me, "I will get through this. Somehow, I will be okay." I knew it was true, but I couldn't really believe it.

My heart goes to that place often, the place where I realize this world doesn't make any sense. It feels like there must have been some cosmic mistake. My child's absence from my life was not an omission, but rather a giant red X that marked a broken life. He wasn't omitted from my life. He was replaced by an injustice, a horrific error. And I ache for him, and cry for him and succomb to a grief that has never been possible until now. But I have to remind myself that this wasn't a mistake. It just happened.

Since then, I remind myself over and over again that what happened cannot be fixed. There is no "righting" this wrong. There is no "solution" to the problem. The most important realization, for me, has been that what I do have control over, the thing that I can fix is the way choose to move forward from here.

My sister-in-law shared a beautiful quote by Beau Taplin and I read it and think about it almost every day: “Listen to me, your body is not a temple. Temples can be destroyed and desecrated. Your body is a forest—thick canopies of maple trees and sweet scented wildflowers sprouting in the underwood. You will grow back, over and over, no matter how badly you are devastated." There is no doubt that this has been absolutely devastating. Dreams and beliefs and everything I took for granted have been destroyed, like a wildfire burns a forest. The only choices I am left with are when do I plant again? Do I tend the plants or do I let them grow wild? Do I select for drought tolerance, heavy shade? Do I want sustenance or beauty? Can I have both? Do we bring color and variation or symmetry and order?

My reality now is that I am growing back, little by little. And I am planning my life as a healing garden of remembrance for my baby. I will do everything I can to mother him by living my life for the both of us. He never had a chance to shape his own future, so I will do everything in my power to create his legacy as one of love, of gratitude, of hope. It will never be enough, but it is what I have.