on losing a baby

The following is an incredibly sad and intensely emotional story. Three years ago, my oldest friend (and very first BFF) Alison lost her firstborn, a daughter, Annika Beth. Alison wanted to do something to remember Annika on this, her birthday, and to make sure other people remember her short little life, as well.

I wrote this piece to remember Annika, and to honor Alison and her family, the other mothers and fathers who have lost their babies, and the babies whose lives here on earth were far too brief.

I know some of my friends and readers are currently pregnant. This is probably not the best time for you to read this piece.

I share this here with Alison's permission and blessing. I love you, Al.

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"Things come close to us and we can almost hold onto them, but then they disappear. Things seem as if they are just about to make sense, then suddenly there is immense confusion and what was about to make sense seems quite remote, a million miles away."*

She said she couldn't feel her arms. They had gone numb. She had no use for them now that she had come home empty-handed.

Empty arms. Empty womb. Leaving her baby, the body of her precious daughter, there at the hospital when the time had come to check out and face her empty home -- it was the hardest move to make.

It pained her, physically. For eight months she carried her daughter, tucked safely away, growing; each slide and kick a reminder of what was coming, what lay ahead.

They planned, they prepared, they prayed, they waited. Decorating a nursery, hanging closets full of clothes. Diapers stacked and ready to wrap around a teeny, tiny squishy baby bottom.

But she didn't come home.

Eight months. Feeling great. One afternoon and she was so very tired. And after a long nap she woke and realized she hadn't felt the baby move in a while. So she called to set up a check-up, to reassure herself. They'd listen to the heartbeat and then grab dinner.

On the drive, she said,"Maybe we'll name her Charlotte." And he said. "Maybe. We have time to decide."

I was standing in the kitchen at my mother's house when my phone rang. It was Alison, and I was surprised to hear from her. We had just spoken days ago. About baby slings and nursing bras.

"I'm just calling to tell you that our baby died," she said.

And we wailed, the pain of every mother's heart pouring down on us and through us and drowning us as we wept and screamed that it couldn't be. That there was nothing worse than this. I passed my baby to my sister, and I listened to her story and I cried with her an ocean of tears with salt that stings and poisons the water so that your thirst can never be quenched.

I went to see her, two weeks later. I left my babies and I sailed across the lake to wrap myself around her and wrap fingers in baby blankets and sit side by side in a chair pouring through photos of a baby lost. A baby beautiful. Her sweet, perfect Annika Beth.

She birthed that baby. She pushed her into the cold of the world from the warmth of the womb two days after her soul left her body. She was gone before her mother ever had the chance to gaze at her perfectly formed features, the vessel for her sweet spirit.

We stood at her grave. And I stood frozen in sorrow, watching my friend drop to her knees and then prostrate herself on the fresh soil, the grass. Face to the dirt, fingers clawing the earth, weeping, pouring her soul-full sorrow and pain and grief out into the world. Surrendering to her body's urge to get as close to her daughter as physically possible. Dirt stuck to her cheeks and she spat grass out of her mouth as she cried - I just want to hold her, to see her. I just want my baby.

That vision will never leave me.

The ferocity of love, of grief. The making and breaking of a mother. The human desire to hold what is ours, to resist the release. To wrap our arms around our children and have them need us. To have them need us.

It changed her, my friend. And my friend changed me. I stand in quiet awe of this woman. Of this mother. Of the strength of love and the fire of passion and the great, great depth of grief.

"We are constantly trying to grasp something, and we lose it just as we think we have our fingertips on it. That is the source of frustration, suffering."*

*quotes from Chogyam Trungpa

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It is difficult to know how to support someone who is grieving the death of their child. Alison offers this insight:

When she lost Annika, the people who helped her most were those "who were willing to sit in the dark pit of grief with me and didn't try to make it better, but rather shared my sorrow. I remember getting cards wishing me 'well' and 'better days ahead' and wanting to shred them. I didn't want to be better or feel better...I wanted to experience the depth of my sorrow...I think the best way to 'deal' with grief is to experience it for what it is. People who are willing to come alongside you during those times are the biggest gift, the only gift, in tragedy."

If you are interested in making a donation to support families who lose an infant, Alison recommends the organization Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a group that organizes professional photographers to take photos for families that have a baby die.

If you wish, please use the comments section to honor a parent who has lost a child or to remember a baby lost too soon. Please feel free to comment anonymously.