The Most

When do you miss him the most? Lu asked me last night.

"Alone in the car," I replied.

When I can't listen to the radio for another second and I'm tired of all the music I have and I'm just driving along quietly and my mind starts to turn, I feel him not-there so powerfully it makes me choke.

In the first months and years after he died driving alone in the car was when I cried the most.  A new story about pregnancy, or that perfectly placed Modest Mouse tune, it would annihilate me and the car was the perfect capsule to scream as loud as I needed.

It is also why I will never, ever put up one of those fucking Baby On Board signs.  I wasn't planning on running you off the road, but since you're rubbing it in my face maybe I should!?  Strange that they don't make a dead baby sticker to add to those insanely annoying sticker families, either.  Also, get out of the fast lane and learn how to drive!  My typical rant makes Lu laugh.

What about you? I asked her, serious again.

"When we're around other kids, friend's kids, that would have been the same age as him.  I always miss him, but that's when it's the worst."

Yeah, I agreed.  Absolutely.

Three year old boys just becoming little guys with their dads running around the yard or walking down the street as alive and independent as only three year olds can be.  I remember pieces of what it was like to be that age, but I will have no memories of Silas at this age.  He vanishes to shadow every time I glance toward him.

In the evening, alone, I feel more alone for missing him, for never knowing him.  The constructs and inventions to heal a day are insufficient to make sense of why we can't share the world with him.

His death added a bone in my body lengthwise through my heart, sliced my liver in two, blew my innocent vision to smithereens, twisted my ankles unwalkable, trapped my breath in poisoned lungs.  I'm not the same person I was before Silas and that kinda sucks 'cause I kinda liked who I was.

More importantly, I was very much looking forward to who Silas was going to transform me into. (insert bitter laughter)

I am transformed absolutely but not at all how I wanted.

To be so wrong about how I thought things were going to go is profoundly undermining. What else will I get wrong?  What other traumas await down the road?  How can I trust myself to make any choices, to have any expectations about the future when his absence is devastating proof of how utterly foolish I could be?

Even worse is Silas's transformation from life to death.  From potential to memory with barely a stop in between.  From ours here to love and cherish and hold, to dust we cannot hug.

A thin, young, sliver of tree quivers in the evening breeze, under the stars of his name and they remind me silently of the never-ending-quiet blasting from his vanished lungs.

When do we miss him the most?  

Always we reply in unison.  Always.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are there certain instances or particular experiences that most remind you of your lost child or children?  Has that changed over time?  Are there new moments that catch you by surprise?

open letter

In late July, an email came into the contact form in the Glow in the Woods email inbox. I respond to those requests when we get them. It was from a woman who hadn't lost a child, but whose best friend had. She thanked Glow in the Woods for giving her a starting point in the piece How to Help a Friend through Babyloss—a section where we hope to guide friends in the right direction. (We urge you to add your own experiences with what was and wasn't helpful in the comment section of that post.) She asked if we knew any blogs for the friends of babylost parents, or if we could direct her for support. I suggested she post the question in the forum, and I posted the question on my social media sites. But the depth of compassion and love for her friend was so palpable. Conversely, the compassion and love this community showed her strengthened my conviction that conversations about friendships and child-death need to continue happening. 

She wrote again in December, thanking this community again, telling me where she and her friend found themselves now  in their grief and their lives. I found her insights so valuable, I asked her to consider writing a guest post for Glow. In the earliest months of Glow in the Woods, Julia's friend Aite shared her thoughts on abiding. Today, I am honored to share Rachael's open letter to Glow in the Woods. —Angie

Dear Glow in the Woods,

You don’t know me, but I feel as if I know you.  I have been a visitor, each and every day for the past seven months.  I have read your stories—every word.  I have followed those stories to your blogs to your spoken word videos.  I am a lurker, because I don’t exactly belong.  I am on the outskirts of this club, the one that you never wanted to join.  I don’t know yet if I am the only one.

I am here because seven months ago, my best friend gave birth to a beautiful, full-term baby girl who had mysteriously slipped away from life a few days before she was born.   

We had spent the weekend together, my friend and I.  I had invited her to spend a few days with me and I relished every moment of it.  We ate wonderful food, took dozens of pregnancy photos, listened to music, and reminisced.  We floated for nearly two hours in an outdoor pool and I cackled uproariously at the sight of her schlepping her pregnant body into an inner tube.  We sat in the warm July sunshine and excitedly discussed her impending motherhood.   It is hard to believe how quickly life can turn its back on you, how fast everything can change, how tragedy strikes in the blink of an eye.

The doctor said that the baby died sometime during that weekend.  I have drug myself to hell and back since the moment I heard the midwife say, tentatively, “Saturday, maybe.”  Why didn’t I ask her if the baby had been moving?  Why didn’t I put my hand to her belly, as I had done before?  Well, because I was having fun.  Because it wasn’t the last thing on my mind, it was something that had never been on my mind.  Because in the world I used to live in, babies didn’t die.  Oh, maybe in third world countries, or in cases of extreme prematurity, or later, to SIDS or something else, but not here, and not to my healthy, well-deserving friend and without any warning whatsoever.   

Like many of you, I have desperately wished for the impossible—the chance to rewind time.  I’m not asking to go back and retake a Biology exam that I wasn’t well prepared for.  I’m not asking to go back to my teenage years, when I made all of the wrong choices.  I’m asking to go back and try to save a life.  And not just any life—the life of a child.  This should be possible.  My dreams try to convince me that it is.  They play like a movie reel, where I am transported back to that weekend and I say, nonchalantly, “Hey, let’s go to the hospital and make sure everything is okay.”  Or maybe even further back than that.  To the day we spoke on the telephone and my friend told me that the baby had been quieter than usual.  To when I said, “Babies do that when they’re getting ready to be born.  It’s the calm before the storm!”  I laughed when I said it.  It was funny then.  It’s not funny now.  Not funny at all.  Allowing myself to go back and think of that conversation immediately brings forth a feeling of guilt that is so ferocious I can feel it stinging my throat, like bile.  It forces me to examine every moment of that weekend, to ask myself if anything I could have done or said would have produced a different outcome.  My mind refuses to stop multiplying and examining an infinite amount of scenarios.

And then, there was the morning that she called me, just twelve hours after I had dropped her off from our weekend together.  She was having contractions, but I didn’t believe it could be active labor just yet, and I was slow to get ready and drop off my children with my mother.  She arrived at the birth center and an examination revealed that she was seven centimeters dilated.  I did not make it to the birth center in time for her to hear the horrific news that there was no heartbeat.  She was completely alone.  The midwife had another laboring woman at the birth center, with no backup or assistance of any kind.  So as a result, my precious, heartbroken friend was left to labor through transition with the knowledge that her baby had died.  And she was all alone. 

Meanwhile, I was driving like a bat out of hell, selfishly hoping that her labor had slowed down just long enough to allow me to witness the birth.  A bright, sunny morning had transformed itself and as I drove, the clouds were darkening.  Sparse droplets of rain became a torrential downpour, the entire sky opening up to warn me of what was to come.  I didn’t see it then, refused to acknowledge that it could have been an omen.  And so, I arrived at the birth center, stupidly full of giddy excitement.  What transpired in the following hours all crowd together into one big, jumbled smorgasbord of shock, anger, fear, guilt guilt guilt, adrenaline, trauma, disbelief, empathy that became physically painful and so, so much sadness. 

The next morning I had to force myself to say goodbye, to my friend, and to the baby that she still held in her arms.  I was expected to resume life as normal, to come home to my four rambunctious boys and my schoolwork.  It didn’t happen to me, after all.  I could see it in the eyes of those who tried to comfort me.  They said, “Just be grateful for the children that you have,” which is a condolence that not only assumed I was ungrateful to begin with, but tried to diminish the grief and loss I felt for a child that I wanted and expected to be a part of my life.  I tried to sit with the boys and be present and shower them with love, but my mind was somewhere else, and their needs were too great.  Life itself felt surreal, a thick fog lining the edges as I walked aimlessly through the supermarket, lost.  I was consumed by grief, and by an insatiable need to fiercely protect and care for no one else but my friend.  It was here, on Glow, that I found solace, and how I discovered that my own words could bring healing as I filled up pages, previously blank. 

So now you know.  I am here.  Not with my own story, but as a keeper of someone else’s.  A story I cannot forget-- one that, at first, tried to destroy me.  A story that still begs to be heard, that unfolds each day and continues to reveal so much—about loss, about grief, about the power of friendship, and about healing.   And it is through your stories that I have learned how to be present for my friend, how to begin to understand just a sliver of her experience, how to nod at my own guilt and then let it slide on past, and how to allow myself to remember and love a little girl lost, one rainy day in July.

—Rachael

If you are here, feeling like a lurker, consider this post an invitation to introduce yourself. Whose story are you keeping? And for the babylost, how does it feel to read of the grief of a friend? Do you have a friend who keeps your baby's story? Someone who bears witness? How does that relationship feel? Has your child(ren)'s death brought you closer or pushed you away?

Nine Days

The two of them met for a brief moment. One of them was alive, nine days old, seven pounds, four ounces, and still under the lethargic haze of infancy. One of them was dead, four hours old, seven pounds, twelve ounces, and still warm from the womb, from the closeness of working organs and a rapid heartbeat. The dead one was lifted in front of the live one, a surreal sight if there ever was such a thing. She was going to be your best friend, the mother whispered. It was hello and goodbye in the same minute.

They were meant for each other, our two girls, Lyla and Margot, born nine days apart to best friends who live on the same street.


Long before children were on the immediate radar, the four of us dreamed of a scenario where our kids grew up together, close in age and close in proximity. We imagined our babies crawling around together, our toddlers fighting over toys, our pre-schoolers trading sentences. It's only natural, of course, for two couples to wish the sort of closeness between their kids as they share themselves.

The mothers navigated the frightening waters of middle school together, and then high school and then University. The fathers own a business together. We have backpacked through three continents, riding crammed busses and jumping off bridges and sleeping in cars along the interstate. And somehow, despite living in different parts of the world for the better part of six years, our friendship remained steadfast.

And then one day they decided to move across the country, straight into our neighborhood. Then they fell pregnant. It was July when they told us, on a blisteringly hot afternoon.

Almost incredulously, ironically, we conceived Margot on the same blistering day we found out they were pregnant with Lyla. One tiny miracle created out of knowledge of the other. The women who became fast friends at the age of twelve, who have known each other for nearly two decades, were just five weeks apart. The stars were aligning.

In those early weeks, those early months after Margot died, it was hard to even imagine what we needed from our family and friends. It was shock and awe, the inability to focus, night time meltdowns, a mountain of anguish. Friends and family came and went, supporting and helping and listening in any way they can. But mostly we just tried to survive each day, one long minute at a time.

And then, suddenly, without notice, it felt like we were all alone in our grief, as if the veil of sadness had been lifted for all but us. It’s all fine and understandable, but the longing for wholeness became a desperation, to be able to share with someone our whole selves, both the anguish and the joy, however unbalanced these emotions were in our early grief. I found myself fracturing, turning into a splintered version of myself. I would smile and nod and deflect questions and give the world a sad, but more or less coping, version of myself. I longed to be my whole self, with more than just my partner. If we couldn’t share the aching burden of our missing child with friends, how on earth could we share any joy we found out of life?

But there is Brooke, mother to Lyla, friend since middle school, standing with us, kneeling with us, walking with us, crying with us, never afraid of our grief, never afraid to talk about Margot. She asks questions and then asks more questions, always wanting to share in our pain as deeply as she can. When a group of us are at a party, with babies everywhere, it is Brooke who talks about missing Margot, it is Brooke who asks what it feels like. Whenever I post a new vulnerable blog about our grief, it is Brooke who talks about it. She has abided with us, without a timeline, without expectations. And what is most astonishing, is that she has done all of this while in the midst of mothering a child for the first time. If there have been sleepless nights or breastfeeding issues or colds or exhaustion or hard days or figuring out the right bottle or any of those new parent realities, we never hear about them. And the love, the sheer perfect love of a child, that normally oozes out of a new parent, has been miraculously toned down around us. Her abiding grace, under such difficult circumstances, is perhaps the most selfless act I have encountered in my lifetime.


Nearly ten months have passed since our babies passed by one another. For a long time, it was hard to even look at Lyla, the most physical reminder of my Margot. The smiling, the giggles, the sitting up, the pure baby charm. Each little milestone was so acutely felt. But somehow through the months of abiding with Brooke and her husband, through the inevitable time that has passed, I can smile at Lyla now, hold her hand, watch her laugh. I can ask about her. She has become integrated into my pain, fused with it. She is part of the missing and she is part of the remembering.  But it is not too bitter. It is sweet. And somedays I wonder, when the rest of the world has forgotten my darling girl, when only her mother and I really miss her, will Lyla be like a marker in time, a beautiful reminder of our little girl, gone for so long?

Were there any children born around you when your child died? How does it feel to watch them grow up? How has your relationship with the parents changed? Are you able to be around the child, or is it too painful? Has this changed with time?

the language of loss

A colleague of mine lost her son last month. His car went off the road on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and he passed away from his injuries.  Another friend lost her 8 year old niece recently in a similarly unexpected and tragic accident.  Their deep sadness echoes within me and I've spent many moments living in their skin when I think about their grief. Or maybe it's the other way around.  Maybe it's that suddenly I could see them wearing the same stretched skin and hollow eyes I know so well.

I hated seeing it on them and in them.

I never knew Silas as a grown boy or young adult.  I never knew him as anything more than the potential of everything we were about to become.  I felt his kicks and saw him grow behind the veil of Lu's bulging belly, but I never had him all to myself, not even for a moment.  My friend knew her niece, saw her grow and develop.  My colleague had 23 amazing years to share with her son.  All three of our experiences are terrible beyond words, and I'm certain none of us would like to trade with the other, for any reason at all, ever.

How do you qualify for being one of us here at Glow?  What are the parameters for Medusa-hood, for babylost?  Those people were their babies even though one was a man as well as a son and the other was not her offspring but still her child in so many ways.  Does a miscarriage at 10 weeks count?  How about a father of 80 who buries his son of 40?  Or by that time does the father already know that the Universe is far from fair and things like that just happen?

I went to Tommy's memorial and heard the amazing things his friends and family said about him.  As I absorbed the stories of this wonderful friend, brother, son, man, I wondered what people would have said about my son.  And then I wished I would never know because he would have died after me, after a long life together where I could nurture and cherish him and teach him to be a good person and a great friend like my father taught me.

The twisted layersof 'what-if' and 'what-should' and 'what-isn't' were nearly overwhelming. At the end of the memorial that was 400+ people strong, I gave my colleague a long, deep hug and told her how sorry I was that her son was gone.  I could barely even look at his younger brother, the loss and shock etched into his face was terrible and so all I could do was tell him to hang on and hold on to his parents and just hold each other up, any way they could.

A few weeks later when I saw my colleague again I gave her another huge hug, but I didn't ask her how she was doing.  I always hated that question in those first days and months and years after losing Silas.  I know it is just something people say because they have no idea what to say, but I still hated it so I didn't ask.  Instead I just told her how we have been thinking about her and her family and that I hoped they were holding up as best they could.  And then later that day we talked.  We talked about how some people we knew well were quick to pull away in our times of loss.  How people we never expected were able to stand right up next to us and hold on tight.  How getting up and taking a shower could be counted as an enormous accomplishment, to say nothing of getting back to work, back to the World, back to the everyday experience where our offspring were not.

I could look her in the eye and hold her in my heart and I was not at all afraid of what she had become or what she represented.  This wasn't some theoretical possibility in my life.  In some way that transcends Tommy's age or Silas's even briefer life I knew to the core of my marrow the filthy chaos and shocking confusion that gripped her tight despite her ability to stand there and talk about her son that was gone.  The pit that was hollowed out within me nearly three years ago is so deep and black and awful that her pain just slipped right in and swirled around comfortably.  I hoped that by standing there with her and using his name and letting her speak about her new awful life that I could lessen her burden minutely, if only for a moment, perhaps until the conversation ended, if that.

For so long, the despair I felt seemed larger than me, something I could never contain.  But somehow I've managed to grow and now it fits into my life without overwhelming me.  It doesn't seem less, not at all.  Instead I had to change the shape of my soul so that everything about losing Silas is in me and a part of me.  Speaking to my friend about her son Tom, I realized that I could stand with her and listen and absorb a bit of her grief because I know how to digest the truth of death.  That sick, awful feeling is to be expected, that it will not destroy me, and that hopefully this loss won't destroy her either.

I hoped that I could serve as a signpost along this path of sadness, that somehow by engaging people in their time of grief that I was doing right by Silas.  It is always better if he were here, but since he's not I have to find scraps of good and use them to the best of my ability.  I will never shy away from people when they are confronted with death because I know how important it was to me when people would talk to me and listen to me and help me to pretend that I was not losing my mind during my worst times.

I can talk to people when they are stricken because I know this language, all too well.  It is a terrible gift from Silas but if it helps one other person pull back from the brink I am more than happy to make use of this awful knowledge.  Even though it feels like we are each all alone with our absent child, the fact is it is all too common.  The death of a child, no matter how old, is always exceptionally shocking and wrenching.  It is something no parent should ever have to experience.  But as we know, 'should' doesn't count around here, just what is and what is not. 

Silas isn't here, and now Tom and my friend's niece are absent, too.  And so for those of us left here, devastated and alone, we have to help each other face each day and grow into people that can survive what we should have never had to endure.  We can only do it together because no one can withstand this alone.

Are you able to speak with people that have lost children or relatives?  Is it something you encounter often, sometimes, never?  Do you feel specially qualified to engage in these types of conversations, or do you prefer to keep your grief and experience private? What words do you use?  How do you speak to people when they are raw with sadness?

salad days

Today, we welcome a guest post from Jess at After Iris. In May 2008, Jess' second daughter Iris died while she was in early labour. Jess' insights always turn my head inside out. And by inside out, I mean, I am left laughing, crying, gaping and scratching my head in absolute wonder at her sagacity. Her observations on grief and loss leave me both satisfied and wanting more. —Angie

There was a time before. A once-upon-a-time. 

Babies were born all shouty and pink, noisy little buggers. Mouths, milk-seeking. Toes, tiny and flexed. There’s a type of English bread called Mother’s Pride, which I always thought was fitting – a bun in the oven. I was so proud.

And then things changed. And I changed.

photo by gliuoo

+++

I think perhaps you are a little more guarded when it comes to other people’s reactions to you, or sometimes you use it as a test, for them and you.

So Holly says. We met almost ten years ago. I directed her in a play. Her character was a nun who kills her secret baby.

It’s hard to define. I’d say you are stronger in your convictions, more opinionated about the things you care deeply about.

That’s Beth. A friend from teenage years. We used to apply red lipstick in the darkened windows of the number fifty bus.

You are more aware of all things “bereave-y” than you were before. I think the experience has strengthened you without becoming hard or fierce. I am comfortable talking in your presence about Iris, because you allow and encourage it. I can’t remember whether you were as open as that before.

Robin, my colleague and a dear friend. Don’t I seem nice through his eyes? Good in my grief, certainly. I wish I really was that way. But I know about the times I raged inside at other people’s petty problems.  ‘Boyfriend trouble? Yeah, it’s tough. But not like PUSHING A DEAD BABY OUT OF YOUR VAGINA.’ Not so nice.

I have noticed two things. One would be the heightened emotions you now show. Sometimes huge sadness but also joy, anger, frustration... they seem to be nearer the surface now. The other would be your drive and determination to do stuff. Where before I think you were content to drift along, now you seem to be more focused and less inclined to let things pass by.

My boss, Alan. Yes, I asked my boss. He’s lovely. We weep every year during my annual appraisal.

No. You have not changed at all.

Carol. My opposite in every way. Yet perhaps she knows me best of all, and I am as green as I ever was.

+++

I’ve spent three years chewing away at Iris' death, and birth. Chewed myself up. Chewed on my knuckles in grief; blood on my teeth. Trying to get to the bone; the barest boniest bit of my truth, after Iris. I grieved for myself, before. Mother’s pride, baked blind. I grieved for the woman who was so sure of shouty babies. But perhaps I haven’t changed. Or perhaps I shouldn’t grieve that past-me, passed over. She doesn’t seem to be missed by anyone else. And maybe she never left.

Do other people tell you you’ve changed, following the death of your baby or babies? What do you think they see now? Do you care?

other women

The groom’s sister looks pale and smiles wanly. Her black cocktail dress fits trimly over her belly; she looks six, maybe seven, months along. In the reception hall she is seated alone across the table from me. Her place setting is adorned with a small white candle and a photo in a black felt frame— her father, who died a few years ago. 

I happen to know that hers is an IVF baby. That she is 39, single, and has decided to parent alone. Her grief is so palpable and familiar—alone with sadness at a happy event— that I find myself wondering if this is her first pregnancy attempt, or if there is a loss in her past, or if her baby has complications. She looks so ethereally sad for someone whose brother is getting married. Maybe she just misses her dad.

I should ask her. This new, compassionate me, who is supposedly unafraid of grief, should ask, How are you really doing? But I don’t. I make small talk. I am embarrassed.

I am faking this wedding. I am going to have a good time, dammit. One of my best friends is getting married, the banquet hall full of old acquaintances, and I just want to pretend I am okay. So I do. For the first time I put a huge parenthesis around my dead baby and prattle on about my beautiful stepdaughter, my great new husband, our upcoming move, and how beautiful the bride looks. This is how I get through it. This is how I have a good time.

Later I regretted this portrait of my life. Not because I hid my baby daughter—there isn’t a person in the room who meant enough for me to share her name with them. But because of the other women I might have wounded with my fakery. Because in that moment I chose to continue the cycle, chose not to break the silence.

At the wedding, I try to be cheerful with Alice, who is spending the evening at the edge of the terrace, the edge of the ballroom, the edge of the crowd. She is fidgety with an angry look on her face. Her very tall husband smiles at everyone, mingles, brings her drinks. I’ve met her only once, at a shower she threw for the bride. There she let something slip about how painful fertility testing is. I see the look on her face tonight and wonder. How many losses? How far long? How many failed cycles? How many bad test results? To me, she looks like grief.

photo by laura mary

When I approach her, she barely responds. Her husband swoops in with drinks. Conversation falters. We end up chatting about my stepdaughter and her adventures at summer camp. This is stupid, given what I know. I want to say, How is the testing going? It’s okay to talk to me. I know something about this. But I don’t. I smile and mention Lilly’s name too many times. Finally, we sidle away from one another. But I watch her all night.

Later I find Nissa, a vivacious Filipina in her late 40s with a poet for a husband. I used to pal around with her and the bride, but that was years ago. She wants to catch up and hear my news. I tell her I am a stepmama, and that I am about to move to her old stomping grounds in the west of the state. Her husband points out that they grow good weed there, not that he’s tried it. We laugh.

As I speak, she hears happiness in my voice. She doesn’t hear the parenthesis. So you like being a parent?, she asks. Oh, that is so great, oh…. She looks up at her husband, and I see the pain cross her face. They have never been able to have children. And now I am the jerk, bragging about “my child” to the childless. I could have told her then about Angel Mae. She would have been kind about it, but it would have felt like backtracking. See I am not really a jerk because my baby died and I haven’t been able to get pregnant again either…

But at that moment, I don’t know how to say it. She is wearing a bridesmaid dress and has a champagne glass in her hand.

Jane is on the dance floor. I haven’t seen her since college. She moved to Colorado, then Paris, then back to the Southwest. She is lively and nerdy and gorgeous, just as I remember her. It has always been hard to get a negative word out of her; she smiles broadly even as she tells me about rupturing her Achilles tendon a week before her wedding. The kids are doing great, she says, total opposites in personality, though. Her younger one is adopted.

I could ask why they chose to adopt. I wonder about losses and secondary infertility. I look for answers in her face, but she is still smiling and grooving as Prince’s Seven blares loudly from the speakers. Maybe she adopted simply because she was adopted herself.

She asks if I am on Facebook. I tell her I used to be but not anymore. Why not? I dodge the question.

Maybe this is just me, seeing loss everywhere. Maybe these women felt fine and could have cared less what I rambled about. Maybe I should mind my own business. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t make myself into the crazy dead baby lady at the wedding.

Maybe. But I’m pretty sure I’m right about this—that at such a happy occasion, there were sad hearts wandering the ballroom. So I’m still thinking about those women, wishing I had spoken up, wishing we could each have felt a little less alone. But silence was my survival that night. Maybe it was theirs, too.

* * * * * * * *

These days, how are you with other people’s pain and grief (hidden or revealed)? Has your own loss made you bolder about being with others who are hurting? What is it like when you say the wrong thing, or nothing? Have you ever publicly broken the “time and place” rules because you needed to talk?