I've written a little bit about the miscarriage I had in the Fall, but recently I've been thinking about it, and there is more I want to say.
This week I have had the great privilege of celebrating with a friend on the upcoming birth of her first child, her first- who will arrive a week or so after the due date I was given by my doctor in September. A date, June 12, that will not pass easily.
I imagine what it would have been like to have babies days apart. Would they have grown up as friends? Sisters? Would they argue over who came first?
I have also had the great privilege of sharing the joy of a new pregnancy with a friend on Friday, only to learn that by Sunday, today, there had been a devastating loss, a miscarriage.
Miscarriage is a crappy word; it's the death of a loved one, the death of the promise of life. Nothing more nor less.
A few days after my surgery, it was a Saturday, I decided to take Sydney to the Mad Potter. We stopped in at Gap Kids and walked over to Starbucks for chocolate milk. I remember thinking how well I was doing, how I didn't even feel sad. The sun was shining, me and Sydney were together, I was going to be ok, I thought.
On the way home, as I turned from West Gray onto Montrose a song came on the radio. Here's what I heard:
I have died everyday waiting for you
Darlin' don't be afraid I have loved you for a Thousand years
I'll love you for a Thousand more
My stomach seized and grief flowed through me like hot blood.
I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll Love you for a thousand more
Mother and child share this sort of connection, and only mother and child. A child is literally "Flesh of my Flesh and Bone of my Bone."
That freckle, that laugh, that sound she makes when she's dreaming- these are all things buried deep in my DNA- things that only my child could share.
My DNA was present, in some form, a thousand years ago, and it will be a thousand years from now.And the child I carried for seven weeks, carried it too.
And then there's God, standing outside of all time,a thousand years in either direction with my child, the one I lost, waiting for me.
And tonight, I will choose to believe He holds the child my friend lost yesterday. As He holds me, and you.
