I don't want to talk about the miscarriages.
Shall we talk about the miscarriages?
That I lost two chances. Two. How many do we get, do you think? Chances to love like that? Not many, I'm guessing.
Don't let's have the "cast your burdens on the Lord" conversation, though. Okay? I mean, that's all very poetic and Sunday-school teacher's pet of you, but do you know what else it is? Absolute crap.
And on the flip side, somewhere among the hospital beds and cold, hospital floors, the florescent lights and needles, sat my husband, tired and worried, who looked at me then in the darkest moment of my life, and told me I was beautiful. Bone weary, bleeding, hollow-eyed and full of the death of our first child, and still beautiful. It was nothing like the movies.
And well meaning friends who do not know about these little losses, who so good-naturedly try to tell me what pregnancy is like, to give me a few hints for when it's my turn. But I know what pregnancy is "like". It has already been my turn.
It's strange. There were clearly two miscarriages, but they somehow feel like one long, drawn out loss. I lost the first just before Christmas, the second in late March. They were distinct, though. I remember each with the perfect clarity of a mother memorizing her child's freckles. I remember how each felt, and the exact moment I knew I had lost them. That virtue had gone out of me.
Shall we talk about the miscarriages?
That I lost two chances. Two. How many do we get, do you think? Chances to love like that? Not many, I'm guessing.
Don't let's have the "cast your burdens on the Lord" conversation, though. Okay? I mean, that's all very poetic and Sunday-school teacher's pet of you, but do you know what else it is? Absolute crap.
And on the flip side, somewhere among the hospital beds and cold, hospital floors, the florescent lights and needles, sat my husband, tired and worried, who looked at me then in the darkest moment of my life, and told me I was beautiful. Bone weary, bleeding, hollow-eyed and full of the death of our first child, and still beautiful. It was nothing like the movies.
And well meaning friends who do not know about these little losses, who so good-naturedly try to tell me what pregnancy is like, to give me a few hints for when it's my turn. But I know what pregnancy is "like". It has already been my turn.
It's strange. There were clearly two miscarriages, but they somehow feel like one long, drawn out loss. I lost the first just before Christmas, the second in late March. They were distinct, though. I remember each with the perfect clarity of a mother memorizing her child's freckles. I remember how each felt, and the exact moment I knew I had lost them. That virtue had gone out of me.
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| Even as a child I had melancholy nailed. (And that Donald Duck, what a creeper.) |
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