What I Lost

So, if you were to ask Aaron what I do all day, he would probably say that I go to the YMCA and then come home and read blogs by people who have had stillbirths the rest of the day. He is not entirely correct but I do find myself reading those kind of blogs all throughout each day.

Anyway, I was reading one of those said blogs this morning and the topic of this lady's post was realizing what exactly it was that she lost when she gave birth to her stillborn son. This lady put it so perfectly and it got me thinking. So many times when a person is grieving, people surround that person immediately and as soon as the funeral and all is over those people are gone. Over the next few weeks people send cards and flowers on occasion but then suddenly that stops, too. It is almost as if everyone else is over your grief, you should be, too. But this is not the case when you lose your child, the child you never got to know. No...this grief I believe follows you around for the rest of your days, like a shadow that covers everything you try to do.

I was outside with Ruby and I started thinking about what exactly was it that was so horribly sad about the death of my poor Jonah. It is sad that I had to carry Jonah for almost seven months, not knowing that I would never get to bring this sweet baby home. It is sad that all of my future plans, that already had him in them, were just snatched from me. It is sad that I had to bury my child...I mean, pick out his plot, casket and headstone...and I am only 25 years old. All these things are devastatingly sad, but the saddest reason of all is that I will never get to watch Jonah grow up. I will never get to stop grieving over my Jonah because I did not only lose my 26 weeks and 6 days old baby boy, I lost my terrible two-year old, I lost hearing the innocent little prayers of my four-year old, I lost my nine year-old little boy who thinks all girls have cooties. I also lost my 15 year old child and the nervous wreck that he would make me while learning how to drive. I lost my 21 year old son, who is just getting out on his own. I lost my 25 year old son who just married the love of his life. I not only lost my son at all of those different ages and stages of life, I lost the relationship I would have formed with his wife and children, my grandchildren. I lost the chance of seeing the look on Aaron's face as he sees his first-born son learn to ride a bike, catch a fish and hit a home-run to win the game. I lost watching Jonah and Ruby play together everyday, forming a bond that only they could. I will never get to know if Jonah's hair would have stayed dark brown like mine or turned white-blond like Aaron's was when he was little. I will never get to know if Jonah's eyes were electric green like his daddy's or dark brown like mine. Would he have the same wit and charm as his daddy or would he be sappy and serious like me? Would he have been a "Mama's Boy" or a "Daddy's Boy"? There is so much I will never get to know.

I may reach a point when I can go around town to crowded restaurants, etc. and not be scared that I am going to break-down or that someone I know will be there and say something to me so I lose my composure...I do not see that day in my near future. But, all the same, I know that day will come, no matter how far away it is. But I also know that I will always be sensitive to this loss...always. I know that even after I am in a "better place" in my life, I will still have days and moments when the sorrow is just too much to bear and the tears will flow, relentlessly. For you see, I will have just lost my son, only each time he is not the baby boy without a heartbeat...each time he is my Jonah, at a different point in his life and I am sad that I can't see who he would have been.

I miss you, Jonah and I love you oh so much!