The Second Day

Okay here goes.

Mostly all I think about is my beautiful baby. So that is what I will probably write about the most. There's a lot of people that I'm not sure how they feel about me talking about my baby Austin, but I need to talk about him. I need to tell people about him. This will be a good way to me to get my feelings out but not make anyone have to be awkward in front of me. Hopefully this will help others to feel comfortable talking to me about Austin and asking me questions. Feel free to ask me questions!

So yesterday I was feeling that there are a few people (not anyone I know personally but have read a bit of a blog) that don't feel that having a stillborn child is as terrible an experience as losing a child later. I think about things more than they should be thought of, but I felt as though I still shouldn't be mourning. I only had 9 hours with my son and I mourn all the milestones that I won't have with him now. There is so much ache and loss in my heart because I never had any time with him alive outside the womb. I never even saw his eyes. I think that's something to mourn for right there. I am still mourning and it will last my entire life.

I've struggled with how to explain my emotions because it is such a roller coaster. I found on the same blog as above a great analogy of grief. It describes really well what it is.

You don't get over it. Getting over it is an inappropriate goal. An unreasonable hope. The loss of a child changes you. It changes your marriage. It changes the way birds sing. It changes the way the sun rises and sets. You are forever different.

You don't want to get over it. Don't act surprised. As awful a burden as grief is, you know intuitively that it matters, that it is profoundly important to be grieving. Your grief plays a crucial part in staying connected to your child's life. To give up your grief would mean losing your child yet again. If I had the power to take your grief away, you'd fight me to keep it. Your grief is awful, but it is also holy. And somewhere inside you, you know that.

The goal is not to get over it. The goal is to get on with it.

Profound grief is like being in a stage play wherein suddenly the stagehands push a huge grand piano into the middle of the set. The piano paralyzes the play. It dominates the stage. No matter where you move, it impedes your sight lines, your blocking, your ability to interact with the other players. You keep banging into it, surprised each time that it's still there. It takes all your concentration to work around it, this at a time when you have little ability or desire to concentrate on anything.

The piano changes everything. The entire play must be rewritten around it.

But over time the piano is pushed to stage left. Then to upper stage left. You are the playwright, and slowly, surely, you begin to find the impetus and wherewithal to stop reacting to the intrusive piano. Instead, you engage it. Instead of writing every scene around the piano, you begin to write the piano into each scene, into the story of your life.

You learn to play that piano. You're surprised to find that you want to play, that it's meaningful, even peaceful to play it. At first your songs are filled with pain, bitterness, even despair. But later you find your songs contain beauty, peace, a greater capacity for love and compassion. You and grief -- together -- begin to compose hope. Who'da thought?

Your grief becomes an intimate treasure, though the spaces between the grief lengthen. You no longer need to play the piano every day, or even every month. But later, when you're 84, staring out your kitchen window on a random Tuesday morning, you welcome the sigh, the tears, the wistful pain that moves through your heart and reminds you that your child's life mattered.
You wipe the dust off the piano and sit down to play.


Since Austin died I have only played my piano a couple times. Usually I pound on it every day. Slowly, I am beginning to play again.