lovely dark and deep

I'm not sure exactly where this post is going. Right now it is raining outside. Streaming down with an unrelenting force. Pelting the windows so hard that the sound within the condo is deafening. I'm sitting here with a glass of wine, feeling my heart begin to break. Slowly chipping like paint off a wall. Chris just told me that one of his patient's follows my blog. And that her friend just had a miscarriage at 13 weeks. She wanted to know if it would be okay if she gave my blog out to her friend. Hoping in some way that my writing over grief and loss would help her friend. Absolutely. If I can help in any way, if my writing helps alleviate her sorrow for simply a minute, then Harper remains alive. I feel nothing but sadness for that woman now. I have been there. I have had that horrible feeling, rise from within the pit of your stomach into the depth of your heart. I've sat there in disbelief as the doctor offers his condolences. Trying so hard not to cry in front of him, while inside your entire being has turned into a puddle of grief. I've left that office, realizing that I am not the person I was when I walked through those doors, just moments earlier. For when I left that office, I left a piece of myself there. Never to get it back. I can curse at the heavens and rail at the injustice that I've been dealt. I can fall to my knees in prayer and weep until there are no more tears to fall. Until the well runs dry. But the end result is the same. Harper is gone. And so too is a part of me.

After Harper died, I was in a very bad place. I cannot begin to describe the pain I endured. The self doubt and self hatred that coursed through my blood every day. The nights I would put my hand on my belly, wondering where she went. And slowly after touching my belly, I would find myself hitting it. Pounding my empty womb. What a traitor my own body was. How much I hated to look in the mirror, for it only reminded me of what once was, and what will never be.

I can't begin to explain when the healing of my heart began. But slowly it is healing. My heart will never be complete. There will always be a missing piece. But now, I honor that piece. Because that piece is my daughter. She nestled up in my heart, made herself comfortable, and then took that piece with her to the heavens.

For all those women who have lost a child, a pregnancy, my remaining heart breaks for you and with you. Losing Harper was the longest road I have ever traveled, and it is a road that never ends. There are pitholes, some so deep that you are tempted to crawl into them. Crawl into that dark abyss and never come out. Wrap yourself in the cloak of death. Many times I have fallen into that pithole. I have stumbled. But I have gotten back up. I have climbed the ladder to the light....and that is not simply an achievement, but grace. Because in my darkest moments, the light that was so bright was Harper. My daughter.

And so for the mothers with empty arms, when your despair is too great and your fatigue overwhelms you, remember this: Just because your arms may be empty, your heart, though missing a piece, has never been more full.

"The woods are lovely dark and deep. But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep." Robert Frost