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to have and have not
We sleep eight hours straight. No one wakes us. I rise on my own to soft sunlight, hearing birdsong. No hungry cries. I drink a glass of wine with dinner. I eat whatever I want. I never throw up. Spicy food makes no baby fussy. We didn’t have to buy a new car. Or rearrange…
READ MOREthe sacred heart
Let me tell you three things about the Sacred Heart. First, I never understood it. As a kid I was creeped out by kitschy pictures of Jesus pointing to his bleeding, dripping heart. I shuddered and skittered away past looming statues in church basements as quick as I could. I stole only the quickest glance…
READ MOREa trimester of grief
Maggie and Abby have been gone for three months. Some days it feels as if their deaths were three minutes ago. Sometimes it feels like three years. Every morning I wake up, turn to the greening trees outside our bedroom window, reorient myself back to the world in which my babies are dead, and then get out…
READ MOREfor better and for worse
I wanted every day to be that perfect. I did. Who wouldn’t? The sky was impossibly blue, the cottony clouds perfectly plump. The sun was warm and sweet. The lilies in my mother’s garden were in full bloom. The church pews were lined with beaming friends and family, just as the laughing dance floor would be packed later that…
READ MOREthere’s a wideness in God’s mercy
Let me try to tell you. There have been exactly two afternoons in the past two months and two weeks (because yes, I still count in months and weeks; this is what mothers of newborns do, remember – or should do in a world where nature does not betray and babies do not die) when my…
READ MOREfor all the mothers
You are the hoping-to-be mother. You are dreaming of a baby, maybe for years. Every month you wait and hope. You daydream about nurseries and names. You envy other women’s round bellies and glowing smiles. You chart days on the calendar and read up on ways to increase your odds. You promise yourself you will never take…
READ MOREstill easter
It is still Easter. Good God. It is a dragging long Easter this year. Two more weeks still to go before we can breathe back into ordinary time. How long do I have to try to rejoice? Our family has done officially zero of our usual Easter season practices. The beloved Tomie de Paola sticker calendar is shoved in…
READ MOREthe dark side of light
Listen closely. What I have to say is just as important – if not more – than this story. The one that started it all. And brought so many of you here. Every single story has a dark side. And the dark side of the unexpected joy we found during Abby’s death – it matters just…
READ MOREthe honest truth
Before we had children, I knew someone who lost a baby after her premature birth. She posted photos of her dead daughter on Facebook. She wore a necklace with her child’s name engraved on it. She included the baby when people asked how many children she had. I thought all of this was weird. And creepy.…
READ MOREthe yes that breaks your heart
Today is March 25th. It is nine months from Christmas: the Feast of the Annunciation. The day that celebrates the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she will bear the Son of God. Today is also Good Friday. It is the day that remembers Jesus’ suffering and death. This year they fall on the same day. This year I…
READ MOREa eulogy for maggie and abby
People often lament that while there is a word for those who have lost parents (orphan) and those who have lost a spouse (widow/widower), there is no word in English for those who have lost a child. People often say this is because the death of a child violates the natural order. That parents should not have…
READ MOREthe bravest baptism
I remember the sight of our first child’s baptism. Holding our baby – our own baby! after years of hoping! – dressed in the same white gown that four generations of our family’s babies had worn, watching him squeal as we undressed him to be plunged into the warm waiting font. I remember the smell of our second…
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