It was a devastating day. We rode home together in practical silence. We had arrived Home and managed to maintain our composure for the babysitter. Lydia was watching some kids program in the living room. After the sitter left, Annie began trying to cook supper. I was leaning against the kitchen counter, arms folded.
Then the dam burst. One of us said something, who it was, what was said doesn’t matter.
All I remember next was that my arms were wrapped tightly around Annie. She was shaking, sobbing, soaking my shoulder. I couldn’t keep it in either. Tears began streaming down my face, settling into her black hair.
Lydia cautiously peered around the corner. “It’s okay sweetie, everything’s okay. Why don’t you get back to your…” It was too late, her arms were wrapped around Annie’s leg. The three of us held that position, forever.
Annie has been pregnant four times, we have two children. We have suffered through two miscarriages and years later, we’re still mourning them.
Many years ago, when I was still horribly naïve to life in the trenches of parenthood, back when my head was filled with hypothetical views on raising hypothetical children, I dismissed miscarriage as something to shrug about. It was even met with a bit of smarminess. “I guess this means you gotta get back to it!” (wink, nudge). I would have been one of those who thought “oh well, you can always try again!”
I learned that it is not the case. I underestimated the connection between a child and a parent. It never occurred to me that all of your children hold a little bit of your soul and they cannot return it. A little bit of your soul passes on with them. Miscarriage killed me a little, I became…less alive. It is something you never truly recover from. My laugh is still an easy one, but it became a little less easy after two of my children passed away.
I never even got to meet them. There’s no one to say goodbye to, nothing to hold onto or clutch to your chest. There’s no funeral, no headstone to leave flowers on. It’s just a dead space. It’s a void in your life. It’s difficult, seemingly impossible to find closure. There’s no consolation. It’s a thing to quietly suffer through, a thing you must now drag with you.
I often wonder how different life would have been had one of them survived. Did I have a son? Two sons? Two daughters? A daughter and a son? I’m always trying to give them faces. I think about how old they would have been. There is a constant rotation of names I apply to them. I can’t settle on one. We were never given a chance to name them.
I look at Reggie, being as mischievous as ever, and realize I never would have met her if one of her older siblings had survived.
I have seen my share of scientific debates as to when a fetus becomes a human. I tighten my jaw and turn away. Science may say whatever it wants. I don’t need anything proved or disproved. I have no need for validation. As a father, I know, I know with every ounce of my being, that there was life there. I know this because it was part me, and I felt it die. I felt it float away. I felt like I was futilely grasping at smoke as they floated away.
Truth is, for me solace is found in my faith. I am a Catholic. Miscarriage has become another reason to be a better person, another reason to try and make it to Heaven. I desperately wish to meet my missing children someday.
As often as my mind wanders to the souls I had to say goodbye to, I try not to lose focus on the living. I have two beautiful daughters. I have a beautiful wife. I have a marriage that survived the blow of miscarriage–twice. Reminding myself of what I have helps in being thankful for what the experience of miscarriage has brought me. It has brought an incredibly deep-seated appreciation of life. It has given me a more pointed focus on fatherhood. It has compelled me to hold my daughters tighter than I ever would have if those tragedies never struck. It has driven me toward living a better life, yet none of it diminishes the pain of loss. It’s cold comfort as I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about them, wondering if the insomnia is preventing them from visiting me in a dream.
I urge you to be less foolhardy than I was. Never dismiss the pain a parent feels over the loss of a child, any child.
To those who have lost a child. I feel the pain too. I’ll reach out and hold your hand.
I will not say a word, there are no words.