On this side of the fence, the grass is crinkly, brown and dead. It’s spread out over a vast space in irregular, ugly little patches. The flowers are wilted if there were any in the first place. It’s raining, and tall, gloomy trees cast ominous shadows over everything. Surrounding you are deep, dark caves. It’s not pretty, but it’s safe. Nothing can hurt us here because we’ve already experienced the worst scares and the worst pain life can dish out.
(The chorus of this song doesn’t fit well here: “What kind of paradise am I looking for? I’ve got everything I want, but still I want more.” Fuck that. We want our babies. But the rest of the song is very fitting.)
We don’t climb over the fence from happy expectation to the field of bereavement by choice. We’re catapulted and find ourselves in an unknown land, disoriented, with sparks of well-meaning encouragement flung at us from people standing in a sunny field who have a very detached, vague concept, but can’t see where we’re standing and what’s surrounding us. (I try to dodge these sparks, because they mean nothing, unless they’re gently handed to me from people not in a rush to make me feel better, and are there to actually understand and comfort.)
There’s thousands upon thousands of us standing in places like this. And when our friends join us, it’s not a happy occasion. It makes us tear up the dead grass, fling it at the sky, and fill the air with cries of “WHY? WHY THEM? WHY NOW? WHY THIS WAY?”
It’s ridiculous, impossible, and unfathomable how many pregnancies fail. Twenty-five per cent of them, actually. I guaran-frigging-tee you know a good handful of people who have lost a baby, an infant, or can’t conceive. They may not let you know about it, but the next time you’re with a group of people, look around you, and just assume (without saying anything, of course), that 25% of those present have had life, dreams, desires and hope ripped from them, tragically.
When a friend joins this side of the fence because they had to say goodbye to their precious, perfect and enormously loved child, no matter what stage of development they were in, it takes everything in me not to fling myself to them and smother them with the things that helped me inch forward in the days following my own loss. But that would be really a really dumb thing to do. Grief is a slow drip, and it’s not my job to gather the evidence of pain to show I understand. I’d be a fool to do that. Only they understand what they’re going through. I went through my own loss, and only I know what that was like. Now is a time to listen and listen and listen and love. That’s all.
Image courtesy of wallpaperstock.net
For Henry 
But it also pulls off old scabs my friend…I can see and feel that you are reliving your pain. Hugs my friend. Lots of love.
Thank you ❤ xoxo