By Chelsea Roman
I don’t want to talk about it. (Yes I do.)
I’m doing alright. (I am anything but okay.)
What I really mean is I don’t want to talk about it, just to hear empty advice.
It might get better but it sure as hell doesn’t get easier. There’s always a new milestone they are missing. A family picture they disappeared from. A new realization of the emptiness. Each day a further step from the time they shared this life. It builds instead of fades.
There’s nothing to “get through” like they keep saying. This is my life now.
I’m not “strong” for surviving this. I had no choice. Bereaved parents are surviving — surviving to keep a piece of them alive with us.
I don’t want to talk about it, just to be met with pity and grimace.
I don’t want to bear witness to your discomfort visible across your face. Directed at me. My truth. I can see it. The reality of my loss would be better tucked away and ignored. It’s too messy and it can’t be fixed. And if it can’t be fixed, let’s not dwell on it right?
I’ve heard over and over these last few weeks “I’m sorry” followed by “I’m uncomfortable.”
Good. It is uncomfortable. No one understands better how uncomfortable losing a child is than a bereaved parent.
WE are uncomfortable. We are living through an unnatural kind of loss.
We are forced to bear this loss while managing everyone else’s expectations and emotions.
We are told “I couldn’t do it” as if we had an option. As if that’s a pat on the back. An honor to our resilience. Let me tell you, it is not. To a parent of loss, it implies our love wasn’t deep enough because we didn’t die by their side, as if the measure of our love for our child could only be shown by us joining them. That is what we hear.
In the weeks following my daughter’s passing I had many friends and family reach out with stories about babies in their lives gone too soon. Some of them I’ve known for years; some of them I consider myself close with. Their stories broke my heart all over again.
And it hurt.
It hurt in a profound way that I can’t describe. It hurt because I never knew their loved ones’ names. It hurt because I can’t recall their faces. It hurt because if they don’t bring them up – it’s like they were never there at all.
They are memories with fleeting evidence they were anything more than a beautiful dream. A crushing weight of realization followed that my daughter will become them. As the days become weeks and the weeks become years, I alone will yell her name for the world to know.
So for that, I will talk about it.
I will accept the cliches and your failing words of comfort. I will smile through the frowned faces and awkwardness you don’t want to sit in.
I will bear your sadness along with mine.
I will keep talking about it. Even when it hurts. Even though I am anything but alright. In fact, because of that.
I want to talk about it.
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Editor’s Note: This guest post is by a member of our Grieving Your Youngest group for loss mothers with living children, but no baby born after loss. Although Still Mothers’ focus is on families with no living children, we do see the need for resources for families with living children, but no baby born after loss.
PLEASE NOTE: This following bio contains information about a living child. Please be advised, there may be triggering language for those who have no living children.
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Chelsea is a mother of three boys, who were followed by a first-trimester loss. Then her daughter, Athena, was born on October 7th, 2019, and she passed unexpectedly nine days later. Her passing has left Chelsea with so many questions. She has found great comfort in finding support groups for parents facing simple loss as well as in writing about her and these feelings.
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