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Unfortunately, my bright orange and happy icon deeply clashes with what I need to write.
On the day that Heath Ledger died, I had been spending the afternoon reading through the stillbirth and neonatal death blogs on my sidebar. Not, perhaps, how some people choose to spend their afternoon, but they are important stories to read. Not just to understand what another person is going through, but because the burden of being the sole keeper of someone's existence is a terrible weight and reading the story helps another person know that they're not alone in remembering their child.
Ledger's death was the front page story on the cover of the Washington Post and I'm sure his death and life were well-covered in newspapers throughout the world. As well it should be because in talking about him, we are all picking up a small piece of his life and holding onto that memory. Reading the stillbirth and neonatal death blogs, I was reminded of a thought from a book I once read where the census report was taken a year after the death of their child. Because this child was born and died between two census reports, her existence was never formally recorded in that respect, never counted. What a horrible burden to think that without your single memory, your child's life could be entirely erased as if it never happened, especially if no birth certificate or death certificate is issued as is the case sometimes with pregnancy loss.
My point is not to dismiss Ledger's life, but to take more of how we mourn adults and apply it to how we mourn children--including those who die in-utero. As a society, we do a mediocre job at aiding in the mourning process of widows and fall even shorter at understanding how to support childless mothers. The reality is that what we know about widowhood actually translates neatly into childless motherhood. A death is a death and while the relationship may have logistical differences, loss leaves a hole in the heart.
We click on the blog stories detailing the deaths of adults. We can certainly take a moment to click on the blog stories detailing the deaths of children.
The post that brought me towards the stillbirth and neonatal death blogs was actually by a woman who experienced a second trimester loss. In Life From Here, Luna writes eloquently about the "outer world of grief."
When I lost my baby boy at 21 weeks, it was unlike anything I had ever known. Nothing had prepared me for that experience or its aftermath. The complex journey through grief towards healing is long and hard, with no clear end. As I’ve learned, it’s a lifelong process. And it’s usually a solo journey. Grief can be shared, as when we gather to mourn a friend or loved one. Mourning is the external part of loss, the shared rituals we observe. But ultimately everyone must find their way down their path. The journey is ours alone. Finding our way through loss is the inner work of grief. Our culture seems to have an aversion to grief in general. Death makes people uncomfortable. As others have so eloquently said, there are many reasons why there is so little support for pregnancy loss and stillbirth. So often these losses are ignored and misunderstood by others. Without support, grieving is an even more challenging and isolating process.
It's an important post to read if you want to truly understand loss, sit with loss, and know how to help someone who is grieving. I think because we feel so acutely uncomfortable around death in general, pregnancy loss seems like an easy opportunity to avoid our discomfort. It is impossible to ignore that a grown man existed--there are photos, remembered conversations, appointments unkept. It is too easy to pretend that a baby never existed--especially one who dies in-utero--and I think this easy out creates this wall, makes people turn their heads and pretend not to see the grieving parents, hold their questions.
Tash at Awful But Functioning has a post explaining the far-reaching effects of grief--how it alters relationships, keeps one from being their old self.
I never finished my thank you notes for everything that everyone did for Maddy. A kind friend ordered me cards so I wouldn't have to, and I began sending them off to thank people for their thoughts and flowers and food and
