It happened again. I got the question. “Do you have children?” she asked. We had been talking about her own kids – three between the ages of ten and seventeen, two daughters in elementary school and a son in high school. I hadn’t thought much of the gap in age between her son and two daughters. “No,” I responded quickly. Then, just as quickly, “Well, my daughter died last year. And we just lost our second in December.” “I’m so sorry,” she responded, and then, “We lost a son, too.”
My heart skipped a beat. Another “lost” baby. Another person in this world who could understand the pain that was my daily companion. We spent the next few minutes talking about our “lost” babies. They named him, took pictures of him, and, shared him with their living children. He is a part of their lives, even today, as they remember him on his birthday, think about “where he must be right now,” or “what it would be like to have him here now.” I told her about Eliana and about Ava. She told me how difficult her subsequent pregnancies were. She recognized my pain, and she gave me hope.
These conversations are more common than you might expect. And yet I hesitate each time when wading into them, sometimes holding my breath and hoping that I won’t get the question at all. “How will this person respond?” Will she apologize profusely and then make some excuse to leave? Will she ask prodding questions about how to prevent it next time? Or worst of all, will she say nothing?
I’m not sure that they get any easier. But each opportunity to talk about my girls is uplifting. It calls forth their lives, lived differently and yet valuable nonetheless, and significantly, allows me to share them with others. I feel called to bring these children, the “lost” babies, out of the shadows – my own, and the countless others – by sharing their names, their stories, their lives, and their presence with others. They too belong here. (And how much deeper is our experience lived for it!) And yet, often, we are too afraid to call them forth.
I thanked her for telling me about her son, and for listening to me talk about my own daughters. Our children, not lost to us, but unseen by the world. She told me how much she wanted to talk about him after he died. She told me that some people were too afraid or uncomfortable to listen, or even, to ask about him in the first place. She told me that what helped her was to share. To speak his presence, his name, his being into this world, where his body was no longer. Amen to that.
We do not always find ourselves in such safe spaces, and sharing, walking through this world with an open heart, is risky. How much easier it is to keep our heads down, to bear our crosses alone, to pray to the gods of fate or luck or some other higher power that what struck our neighbor might miss us. But I can’t keep my head down. I can’t keep silent. Mostly because to hide from my sorrow is to deny the lives of my children. And so my heart will remain open, the names of my daughters always on my lips for anyone who will listen.
I’d like to share my own mantra with you in the hope that it may provide you with some guidance for these difficult, and yet inevitable, conversations. (For what is more human than living, loving, and losing?) Be vulnerable. Open your heart to the possibility that the person across the table may understand. Ask questions of your neighbors. Listen, truly. And, may you be blessed with continual surprise at the ways in which connecting with each other can fulfill and uplift your heart, equipping it, once again, to remain in its natural, open place.