The days leading up to my baby’s Anniversary are complicated. I begin to dread ‘that’ day starting about a month before. This year it will be nine years. I get a jolt when I say that number. I have a seven year old daughter and my baby could have been nine this year, then again maybe not. Some days I can’t imagine the world with her alive, other days that is all I can think about. I have learned that the months, days and hours leading up the ‘the’ day are like a roller coaster of emotions and feelings. What is incredible is, I need that day. I dread, but also look forward to the day. That day, I can cry, I can grieve, I can write and I can pray. I give myself permission to feel however I feel and let the moment move me. Each Anniversary is similar and yet so different. I always light a candle for my baby the Shabbat of the day. I light a candle for all of my children on that day. I place the candle a little apart and watch it as long as I need to and cry or pray. Reflection is a huge part of the day. Where am I now, how have I changed and I let myself feel one emotion that I refuse myself all year, what if. What if I had a nine year old today? I look at my living daughters and wonder would they be here? Would I be where I am today? What would she look like? Would I be the kind of mother I turned out to be? In the early years each Anniversary was fraught with fear, can I feel this way? Is my grief too strong? Too little? Am I okay? Will I forget her? Is she only remembered by me? A stillborn baby is very complicated for many people. They feel that since I never ‘met’ her, perhaps she does not matter as much as a ‘real’ child. I used to feel confused when I would hear about a mother who lost her son when he was older. I have learned never to compare. It will just drive you crazy. This baby this loss is tragic and painful for me. That is what matters, the loss of a child no matter how young, no matter how much you got to know them, no matter how much potential they fulfilled or didn’t get a chance. This was a human that was never alive outside of me.
For many years I waited myself out to see when I would ‘move on’. Each year that would go by the anniversary would be different for me. Some years I was angry, I felt rage! This was not fair, how could this have happened? Why G-D why? Was this some sick cosmic joke? Then I would doubt maybe I made a mistake, maybe she could have lived. (just say to yourself when you get here, hindsight is different, no one wants their baby to die) Maybe she was never to live….these are the what if’s as well. They will come and go as each year travels by. In the early years I was still searching for a reason. I have given that up. I actually don’t want to know anymore. I don’t think knowing helps. I used to think it could help, but no, I have met people who knew and it didn’t. A reason, an answer is to complex there are too many factors and knowledge does not change that she is gone. It was almost like a doorway for me to stand in so I was neither here nor there in accepting my loss.
Each year brings another level of healing and acceptance. Another word better than acceptance is, settling. The pain settles. I wish I could tell you that the pain goes away, and some days I really don’t think of her at all, but I always sense a shadow. I have three living children. When I see a mother with four, there is a part of me that feels unsettled being around her. When I hear of a birth story that was similar to my own and the baby lives, I cry inside. Every birthday, holiday and life event I go thru with my family, she is in the shadows of my mind. I don’t actively think about her all the time, but my mind does without me knowing it. I actually only realized this was happening this year. I just would feel jolts of sadness at happy events.
Most importantly, loss has taught me to self-nurture and care and yes, it takes a long time, but love and forgive myself again. I hated myself for years. The guilt and self-blame are destructive and a part of the grieving process. I like rule books that say exactly what is and isn’t appropriate and being dropped into the confusing void of grief was and is a long winding journey. I need each year to process and settle with another level of my experience.
The tendency to try and shove my emotions and feelings under the rug does not work in the long run. This, losing a child is with you for life in some form or another. For nine years, I had the losing child part of my life separate in my mind. I split my personality to the I am ok with this and functioning and the I am not okay with this broken part semi separate. This year, they have merged. I have forgiven myself, forgiven G-D and settled with my heart.
My baby was a gift. I did not ask for this and still don’t agree, yet here I am and I am living with my little angel in my heart. There she will stay with me always.