Slow acceptance of the sacredness of tragedy
Miscarriages, vulnerability, and speaking with God
It happened as suddenly as a storm during hurricane season. All through the night came the ominous cramping and bleeding no pregnant mother wants to experience. I couldn’t sleep through most of it, and I had chalked it up to first trimester constipation. But the blood said otherwise. When I stood upright at 7 am to change and pee, it all came out. Everything. My last three full months of growing a human had failed. It happened. I had a miscarriage.
The first tragedy that was so tangibly close to me. My nanas had both passed. Uncles and aunts. Even my stepbrother last year. But death had never touched me so intimately. Never had it lingered inside of me and caused such a void in my being that it became an engulfing issue in my day to day.
I feel so desolate. I didn’t plan on making this public or speaking of this at all. Ever. But I’ve come to find writing about it subjectively, and even objectively in my poetry, is more cathartic than any other form of talk therapy I’ve had.
Any word spoken out loud about the loss wells tears in my eyes that I immediately choke back and begin to apologize unnecessarily. It takes a few minutes for me to pull myself together enough to say ‘I lost the baby. I had a miscarriage’.
People usually respond with an apology themselves, but I just can’t accept it. I think because it’s no one’s fault. Not even God’s.
It was a manufacturing error, I suppose. A seed planted but not germinated. The thinner of two plants thinned out for not growing as it needed to.
Speaking with God about it has resulted in the same response: death is sacred too.
It’s the reunion we’ve all been searching for. The ascension we all desire. The never-ending longing that we feel, I think it becomes satisfied at death. Of course, it would because we’re no longer of the world.
Having such an insatiable quench for something higher, doesn’t always amount to a constant feeling of bliss.
Tragedies still unfold and valleys sink deeper below the mountain.
Maybe this is a sign to not have any more children. Could this mean something more than just a conception gone wrong?
Is it coincidental or intentional on Gods part? Considering there aren’t mistakes in divine planning, why would such a thing take place? God giveth and taketh away.
I’ve successfully avoided asking any questions, particularly ‘why’ ones. Because there isn’t any logical explanation, we’ll never know. There isn’t a rational way through this.
Only a faithful one.
“For the LORD disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child” Hebrews 12:6
Reading that a few weeks after gave me a sort of cold comfort, if that makes sense.
My shoulders still slouch from the weight and my gaze stares through everything in sight. The world is just a little bit dimmer now.
But I know, only time can heal wounds. Yet it also, regrettably, wounds heels.
I can’t say for certain when I’ll feel ready to try this again. No one will know, and no one will be told. The secret staying with me so I don’t have to explain my grief after already sharing my elation.
It’s always on my mind, yet always far from me. I try to separate from my daily rhythms only to show up for my kids. If I didn’t, I fear I’d fall into the sunken valley of depression I used to know that arrested everything I did.
I won’t let my grief take me down.
It’s simply keeping me level.
And taking my hand closer to God.
I write so much about my faith, just not publicly. But today, it feels right and helpful.
There’s been so much I’ve written in the last four days of dealing with this.
I’ve talked to no one but my immediate family. Yet, I’ve written everything my heart protests to say out loud. I feel this so deeply yet can’t even begin to verbalize outside of the pencil and paper.
I’ve also been wrapping myself in my old identity, almost as a shield of comfort from my former self that couldn’t be taken down by anything. The sunshine everyone saw.
But it’s just a coping mechanism. Trying to make myself feel safe in my own body again. Returning to something familiar.
Also, a random thank you to Louise Gluck’s The Wild Iris for resounding chords I never realized were within me. Even though that book is older than I am, it won a Nobel Prize for a reason.
Well, this is where we end some things for now. However, endings always come with beginnings, in this life at least. There isn’t any real way to ‘end’ this, more of a forward motion is all that remains.