You’re no longer here, but I talk to you as though you are. At 10 weeks old, your little developing body left my womb, and your sweet little soul went to play with your other siblings in heaven. I talk to you anyway.
Just about every day after you left, I would remember you were gone. At night I would dream of bringing you home and watching you get held and loved on, and smothered in kisses by your brothers here on earth, only to wake up the next morning to realize it was all just a dream. There were also days I didn’t think about you, and life would sort of resemble life before you came and went. Those were the hardest days, those were the days I would feel guilty that I was forgetting you, and angry that you weren’t growing inside of me so I couldn’t forget you, not for a second.
My due date has come and gone, that hurdle is over, but now the real work begins. See, now I have no other choice to believe the inevitable. I know in my mind that you are gone. I know that I will never meet you this side of heaven. But my heart always holds on, I did the same thing with your other five siblings in heaven. My aching mama heart couldn’t let go, and not until your due date came and went, and I didn’t have you in my arms, could I accept I wasn’t bringing you home.
Every time I have become a mother it has changed me in a different way. Each of you babies has stretched me, and grown me, and forever changed me. When your first earthly brother was born, I was a novice to motherhood. I stumbled my way through knowing how and when to feed him, how to get him to sleep, how to balance all his needs at once. By the time your third earthly brother was born, I had the basics of babyhood pretty well ironed out. I struggled with new things, like learning how to be a mother of three earthly babies all at once, and living off two or three hours of sleep again. I had become a more experienced, mature mother, but there were now new struggles.
It was a similar dance with you and my other five heaven babies, though I didn’t have to learn how to mother any of you, and care for your physical and emotional needs, and balance all your needs with mine and the rest of the family. There was no manual to guide me through how to navigate life after miscarriage. I had to learn how to be a mother to a baby I would never hold. I had to learn how to care for a body that wasn’t sure if it was a post-partum body or a pregnant body, or just a broken body in need of repairs that I didn’t know how to repair. The focus was more on me then on the six of you, which just added to the confusion and heartache.
Sitting here today, still talking to you, still yearning for you, still desperately trying to hold onto your memory, I mourn just like I mourned each of your five heaven siblings. But, there is a difference today versus this day 16 years ago, when I first became a mother of a baby I would never bring home. The difference is, 16 years ago, I was a novice to this type of “mothering”, and I was a novice to this type of loss. Today, even though the pain is still the rawest pain I have ever experienced, I am walking through this pain as a more experienced, more mature mother. I could wish away each of my six miscarriages, I could choose bitterness and anger and resentment for the path to motherhood I have been given. But, if I did that, it would be like wishing away six little souls that have forever changed me. If I did that, I would be dishonoring your memory and your purpose in this world. Because, even though you’re short life only existed inside of me, you have purpose, and I know that it is my responsibility as your mother to live out that purpose on your behalf and on the behalf of each of my six heaven babies.
You are not forgotten, none of you are forgotten, you each have a purpose, and each of you are seen in this world. Though you are not physically with me, I carry you with me in my heart and I honor you by how I live out this life on earth.
I love you, your daddy loves you, and your three brothers here on earth love you so much and so deeply!
You are not forgotten!
-Sarah Gail
Palmer, AK
Published 6/14/18