After a Miscarriage

Last summer, when I was round with my second child, perpetually devouring ice cubes as Natalie somersaulted in my womb, a friend came to visit. I had heard that she’d recently had a miscarriage, but she hadn’t yet told me herself. And I was afraid — in the way that everyone seems to be — of what I would say and how I would say it. I hoped that I could somehow be present to her, that my ever-expanding belly would not create a chasm between us.

As I drove to the airport, I wondered how she might bring it up, or if I should, and if I did, how I would. Despite my healthy pregnancy, the shadow of grief covered most of that year — we’d lost three friends in eight months, all under the age of 30. In our tiny church, five women conceived and announced their pregnancies, but only three of us would bring the babies to term. Death was all around us, and yet I found myself tongue tied when my friend climbed into the car beside me.

After telling me a little bit about her flight, she mentioned the miscarriage, and then she said something I’ll never forget. She said, “After my miscarriage, I realized that I needed to tell my story in the same way that women needed to share the stories of the birth of their children.”

As much as she needed to tell her story, there were some that weren’t ready to hear it. And it troubled her that so many people who knew about the miscarriage chose to say nothing. An awkward silence does seem to surround those who grieve this kind of loss — even if they are brave enough to be open about it.

In The Eldest Child by Maeve Brennan, she describes a mother grappling with the death of her 3-day-old infant:

At the time he died, she said that she would never get used to it, and what she meant by that was that as long as she lived she would never accept what had happened in the mechanical subdued way the rest of them had accepted it…. They behaved as though what had happened was finished, as though some ordinary event had taken place and come to an end in a natural way. There had not been an ordinary event, and it had not come to and end.

What Not To Say

In the Old Testament Book of Job, after everything is taken from him in a heartbeat — his children, his riches, his health — his friends all step in to offer words of consolation, and each friend is more unhelpful than the last, until Job finally says, “How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with words?” (Job 19:2)

Couples who suffer a miscarriage often also suffer from their friends’ inability to grasp the magnitude of what has happened. Like Job’s friends, they might say insensitive things like “You’ll have other children one day,” or “There was probably something wrong with the baby.”

These statements minimize the bond the parents had with the baby growing in its mother’s belly — a child that they were just beginning to know but may have already come to love deeply. In a letter to his friend after the death of his mother, Phillip Brooks wrote, “People bring us well-meant but miserable consolations when they tell us what time will do to help our grief. We do not want to lose our grief, because our grief is bound up with our love.”

Unanswerable Questions

After a miscarriage couples struggle through unanswerable questions. Why would God allow them to conceive only to allow the baby to die? Why hope when life is so fragile? Or “What did I do wrong?”

All these questions, the guilt and blame, and the feelings of divine betrayal that might be connected with a miscarriage only highlight the essential wrongness of what has happened. There are no answers to these questions, because we were not created for death, sickness or sin. No matter how often we wrestle through these things on earth, some stubborn holy streak in us clings to the memory of Eden. A Jewish friend recently told me that in her tradition, there are no prayers for the death of a child, because this kind of thing is not supposed to happen.

Maeve Brennan describes this grieving mother, struggling with those who tell her the death was God’s will:

When she spoke for any length of time they always silenced her by telling her it was God’s will. She had accepted God’s will all her life without argument, and she was not arguing now, but she knew that what had happened was not finished and she was sure that it was not God’s will that she not be left in this bewilderment…. All she wanted to do was say how she felt, but they mentioned God’s will as if they were slamming a door between her and some territory that was forbidden to her.

Naming the Child

The friend I mentioned at the beginning of this article found healing as she grappled with the concrete details of her loss. She and her husband requested that they be allowed to take their tiny baby home from the hospital, they named their child, built a casket for him, and as a family, buried him at a monastery. Their two young girls helped sprinkle dirt on the casket, and perhaps because of this, they know in a very real way that they have a sibling in heaven that they will one day see again.

Even if a couple can’t identify exactly when a miscarriage occurred, making a burial impossible, the act of naming the child is a powerful way to bring to light the reality of that child’s existence. Naming is a holy thing — it was the first act that God trusted Adam with — and Adam’s first opportunity to be God-like. I have heard that there is an Eskimo legend that a newborn baby cries because it has not yet been given a name. We all ache to be fully known, to become who we were meant to be, and a name can be our first guidepost along the way.

Naming a miscarried baby not only makes the loss more concrete — it also allows the parents to bond with their child, to claim her and to prepare for reunion with her — even as they offer her back to the one who is Life.

Maeve Brennan concludes her passage about the grieving mother this way:

She was much calmer than she had been, and she no longer feared that she would lose sight of the shape that had drifted, she noticed, much further away while she slept. He was traveling a long way but she would watch him. She was his mother, and it was all she could do for him now…. She was weak, and the world was very shaky, but the light of other days shone steadily and showed the truth. She was no longer bewildered, and the next time Martin came to stand hopefully beside her bed, she smiled at him and spoke to him in her ordinary voice.

Copyright © 2007 Jenny Schroedel. Originally published on Boundless.org March 22, 2007.

The Other Child

Why can’t they understand?
If I become blind
In one of my eyes,
Of course I am still grateful
For the vision that remains in the other.

But I will never stop mourning the absence of
My precious eye
The one which I lost.

My vision has changed forever.
I will never, ever
See things the same way again.

–Joanne Cacciatore (an excerpt from the book Dear Cheyenne, by Joanne Cacciatore ©1999, 2007 All Rights Reserved. Used with permission of the author

The Empty Place

Since you’ve been gone
there is a place
inside of us
that is shaped like you
so empty now
that place which is filled
with so much love
for you.
––Juliana Bibas

Truly, Madly, Deeply

When we heard,
we knew, we laughed
we cried.
We fell so in love with you.

The business of growing
so fast so true;
we saw it that day
early and new.
We fell so in love with you.

The days of dreaming,
wondering
talking only to you,
knowing you were mine,
you were ours.
We fell so in love with you.

First you were there,
we saw you, felt you,
loved you more.
Then you were gone
and we wondered
what to do
with all the love
we had
for you.

For you are our firstborn
our son, the fruit of our
union.
We fell so in love with you.
So in love with you.
—Juliana Bibas

Dear Isabelle

Dear sweet Isabelle,

There is so much I want to say to you. From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I have loved you. In the beginning I was afraid to get too attached. The first trimester passed and you were still with us. I was terrified to have the 20 week ultrasound. I didn’t care if you were a boy or a girl as long as you didn’t have any of the problems I had seen with so many of the kids I had taken care of. When they said you had a perfect looking heart and everything else looked good, only then was I truly reassured that everything would be okay. They told us you were a girl and my mind started to think of all the things we would do together…visiting the zoo, taking walks, playing in the garden, enjoying the sunshine, hating our hair (I knew it would be curly).

As the weeks went by, I got ready for your arrival…had the showers…went to the classes…got your room ready. I learned to love your squirming and kicking even if your favorite time to be active was right as I was trying to go to bed. As things drew closer, we talked about the weeks before you were born, not months. As the expected day grew even closer, we got more excited to meet you. We named you Isabelle and found ourselves seeing things that we thought you would like and even bought some of the things we saw.

Then the nightmare began. I didn’t feel you move and they told me they couldn’t find a heartbeat. It seemed like an eternity until you were born. When I got to hold you, you were the most beautiful child I had ever seen. A full head of hair, a little button nose, such beautiful lips. As I held you I knew all those hopes and dreams I had for you were crushed and over. I would never be able to feed you, change your diaper, hear you cry, comfort your tears. Instead, I would have to do something that no mother should have to do, say goodbye to you, my precious daughter.

Isabelle, even though we do not understand why you had to leave us, we will always love you. We will always celebrate the joy you gave us in the time we knew you. Please look down on us and help us through this terrible time as we mourn your passing. Isabelle, we will never forget you and we will keep you in our hearts forever.

I love you, Isabelle

Love, your mom

To Isabelle

When I first learned you were coming I was scared. How would I take care of you? Was I ready to be a dad?

As time passed I dreamt about all the things we would do together: first words, first steps, our first trip to the zoo to see the animals. A lifetime we would spend together.

The weeks turned into months. The doctors showed us your fingers and toes; they told us you were a little girl. You started move and kick, we could see and feel you. You were real and a full part of our lives.

One day, I’m not sure when, I was no longer scared. I thought of myself as your dad and you as my little girl. Your room was ready and your cloths were in the closet. We knew your name was Isabelle. Any day you would enter the world.

Then the world turned upside down. When I held you in my arms I felt great joy – I had a daughter, I was her dad. I also felt great sadness – your time with us had been cut short. There would be no first words, first steps, or trips to the zoo. Not even a first cry or a look into your eyes.

Still, you will always be my little Isabelle and I will always be your dad.

I love you Isabelle, Dad.

Rachel’s Tears

Aslan’s death so filled their minds that they hardly thought of it…. And down they both knelt in the wet grass and kissed his cold face and stroked his beautiful fur — what was left of it — and they cried till they could cry no more. And then they looked at each other and held each other’s hands and cried again and then again were silent.

—C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine died in a car accident. I traveled to Champaign to be with his 28-year-old wife, Rachel, as she grieved. Although I’d just written an article about comforting the bereaved, my experience with Rachel opened my eyes to a different way of grieving.

In the hospital, after Rachel received word that Nate had died, she wept, as you might expect. But you might not be able to imagine (as I couldn’t) what she did next. She started saying, “Christ is risen!” to everyone who would listen: the nurses as they entered the room, her sister on the phone, her dad on the hospital bed beside her. She woke in the middle of the night with ideas for the funeral sermon and she resolved to wear white.

“People thought I was denial,” Rachel said. “But I understood what had happened. At the same time, I glimpsed the reality behind the reality — the deeper reality.”

Keeping Vigil

If you’ve been up all night and cried until there seems to be no more tears left in you — you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing is ever going to happen again.

—C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

My first night with Rachel was her first night back in the apartment she had shared with Nate. It was a night of details — of taking them in like a long, jagged breath. Nate’s coat was slung over a chair, his boots flung on the floor, just as he’d left them when he’d come home from work on the Friday before the accident. Rachel and I thawed chili from the freezer, and it seemed odd to me that we were sitting together, eating that delicious chili, from before.

Later, when I crawled into bed beside Rachel, I noticed something: just above the nightstand, in the soft glow from the Chinese lantern, there was an icon of the Resurrection. Christ was clothed in white, pulling Adam and Eve from their tombs. As I looked at the icon, I realized that each night before Nate turned in he must have seen it. I can’t help but wonder if he knew his time was near because of how well he lived during his last months.

Rachel told me that their last morning together was full of joy. As they got into the car to leave the church, Nate stopped Rachel. “I didn’t get a hug today,” he told her, his arms open wide.

“He never let a day go by without us embracing,” Rachel told me. “He helped me to remember that we needed to embrace each moment we had together. That may be part of the reason I’m able to let him go and accept his death — we lived our marriage as a gift.”

* * *

That night, Rachel asked if I would read Psalms as she drifted off. She directed me to Psalm 126:5-6.

Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy!
He who goes out weeping,
Bearing the seed for sowing,
Shall come home with joy,
Bringing his sheaves with him.

It was a night of restless grief, but also of unexpected joy. Rachel could only sleep for a few moments before she would begin to speak again. We wept so many times that night that I had to continually get fresh glasses of water from the kitchen.

Rachel and I make some pair. She is a teacher and I am a writer. She, even in her deepest moments of grief, continued to teach. For my part, I continued to take mental notes, struggling to create metaphors so that I could understand what was happening.

At some point during that long first night, I interrupted Rachel’s grief with an idea. “Isn’t this something like being on a river? You just can’t stop the current.”

Rachel, being ever the patient teacher, considered my latest attempt, “Yeah, Jenny, that’s right,” she said, sighing a little. Hers was a twilight grief. That long night was permeated by her very clear sense that the dawn would come.

Bright Sadness

Within Eastern Christianity we have a term which at least partially captures what we experienced at the funeral. “Bright sadness” is a kind of “bitter joy” or “joyful mourning.” It is a reality which defies all logic, and perhaps because of this, it causes us to rethink all that we thought we knew.

It was bright sadness which inspired Rachel to wear white that day, as she stood beside the casket of her husband in the church where they had married five years before. And it was bright sadness that caused the five priests to wear white vestments as well. I also saw it in the way that they approached Nate at the end of the service, one by one, kissing his forehead and making the sign of the cross over him.

The funeral gathered this reality together and held it for us: the agony of a death we were never supposed to experience with our hope in the Resurrection. Rachel, looking like a radiant bride, even as she wept. As one of Rachel’s friends told her afterward, “The Gospel hung in the air with the incense.”

Weeks afterward, I’m still pondering that thick, sweet air. Thick with sorrow, thick with hope, thick with the knowledge that even in our darkest moments God is there. Recently, on the phone with Rachel, I told her that the funeral helped me to see that the Resurrection is true. It happened — and is happening.

“I think I will use that phrase for the rest of my life to explain those days of mourning and joy,” Rachel told me.

The girls cleared away the remains of the gnawed ropes. Aslan looked more like himself without them. Every moment his dead face looked nobler, as the light grew and they could see it better.

In the wood behind them, a bird gave a chuckling sound. It had been so still for hours and hours that it startled them. Then another bird answered it. Soon, there were birds singing all over the place.

—C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Yours Was the Heart

Yours was the heart I could have cared most for in this world and yours was the heart that I hoped would also so care for me. For caring, I have learned is a great gift.

My precious darling, how briefly we were close, and how sad I still become; a blessed sadness though it seems this love, this love … but how soft it makes my sounds toward others, and that is good.

I should think now of what you would want from me if I could watch you grow … it is happiness isn’t it.

Yes, it is joy in my eyes for you and this world. I will try. I will try.

And thank you, dear, thank you from the deepest parts of me for the wonderful moments, the extraordinary time, yes time, yes time we had.

–Daniel Ladinsky

Nobody Knew You

Nobody knew you
” Sorry about the miscarriage dear, but you couldn’t have been very far along.”
…existed.

Nobody knew you
” It’s not as though you lost an actual person.”
…were real

Nobody knew you
” Well it probably wasn’t a viable fetus.
It’s all for the best.”
…were perfect.

Nobody knew you
” You can always have another!”
…were unique.

Nobody knew you
” You already have a beautiful child. Be happy!”
…were loved for yourself.

Nobody knew you
…but us.

And we will always remember
…You.

By Jan Cosby

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