Young Writers Society

I held it together until Christmas Eve
At a children's mass. The song was
Away in the Manger and I couldn't bear
Singing about putting newborns in cribs.
If everything was fine, then I should be six,
almost seven months pregnant, except
Everything wasn't fine and I remember
wondering why God could be so cruel
to abandon me, only to for me to go to
Church and meet Him singing songs about cribs
And newborns and everything else that hurt
When I felt like I had nothing left and was just
A hollowed shell person.

I didn't know then that there was a little secret
Growing inside of me, even as I wept.

Periods afterward were times when
nothing got done. Covered in blood,
I would remember and then shut down.
Every blood clot was a slap in the face.
The color, the consistency reminded me of
that one time and I would freeze and then
clean up because what else could I do?

But the period came late for January and
with it a thousand emotions came.
We could handle another child --
that was not the problem, but another loss?
Already, I could feel myself dreading the day of
March 2, 2023. That was the lost one's
due date. The day that would pass by quietly
without notice except for the yearning of my heart.
To have another loss meant another day where
my heart would break and nobody would know
why because I couldn't bear to speak.

It was two weeks before I could
summon the courage to take a
pregnancy test. Peeing on a stick is
harder than it looks and harder still when
your hands are trembling. And then there's that
awful moment where you are waiting, watching
to find out the result and then:

Positive. The result showed up almost at once.

And I stared at it in disbelief while
a million thoughts danced around my head.
Grief and joy mingled together in a blur.
And fear -- there was so much fear. For new life is a
fragile little thing that can flit away in an instant,
leaving behind in its wake an empty grave
with no body to put inside.

Twenty years after the eruption of
Mt. St. Helens, I visited the park
And saw the broken volcano
With the top burst out.
On television screens they had on repeat
Video of the eruption. Again and again
You could see the mountain exploding in
Rock and ash. So encompassing was the cloud
That it covered the whole region in darkness
For days afterwards and everyone found it
Hard to breathe or even live in such
Terrible darkness.

But it wasn't dark when I visited
The park. It was bright and cheerful.
The sun was out and though the mountainside
Was desolate and my shoes crunched on tephra
Life was beginning to come back. Tiny purple
Flowers sprung out of the ash, their stems
Small and cautious. They were tentative creatures
That were born from violence and raised
In a barren landscape more fitting for the moon.

And I remember seeing a sign to warn people
Not to pluck the flowers. To let them be,
since they were born from so much trauma
and life was so tentative and fleeting.
It had taken these flowers twenty years to
Find the courage to rise out of the ashes
And blossom in the sunlight, stretching their
Petals out for the heavens to see,
And it would be a tragedy for these little flowers
To die before their time. Not when they could be
Protected and nurtured and loved
For daring to face the sunlight after
Everything seemed lost.

They call it a Rainbow Baby --
the baby that comes after loss.
For rainbows only appear
when there is rain.

And it was a fitting, if bitter metaphor
for didn't God offer His promise
as a rainbow cut into the sky?
After sending a deluge and killing off
almost all of humanity, He sent a rainbow
as a sign of His Love and as a promise
never to destroy the world again.

After the storm comes a rainbow.
After death and loss comes life.

What more is there to say?

And nobody told me that when spring comes
the trees bloom once more. That their bare limbs,
skeletal from the winter cold, suddenly bear buds
that beam with brilliance with all the color of autumn
yet with the hope of spring.

Where there was once only death, life appears
and the birds cry out in joy to proclaim the resurrection.

And there is no good time for loss.
Loss shatters worlds and destroys souls
It makes us cry and scream to God,
All while clinging to Him all the more
While we are swept away on a raft
In an endless, choppy, sea
While we are left a broken compass
And a too small oar to paddle about
Searching for a home when there is
None to be had.

But there is no good time for miracles either
For miracles come hand in hand with loss.
Few appreciate a sunny day brimming with flowers
And an endless blue sky when it is so normal
It is boring. It is only after a powerful storm
When you realize how tenuous those sunny days are
And cling to the warmth of the sun.

The chance for miscarriage on a
Given pregnancy averages to about
Twenty percent. With every week, the
Chance gets lower until the second
trimester, which is when the odds of
Miscarriage drop from less than five percent.
Until then, life is tenuous as it forms and
miscarriage all too common. Some people
even warn expecting parents not to say a word
until this date passes because before that day
The chance for loss is so high.

The lost one was gone at nine weeks -- still within
The first trimester, though only barely. And
with this new child, I held my breath, wondering
if this one would would live past this mark.
For nine weeks, I waited, then after nine then I waited
Several more until the beginning of the second trimester
Before I could breathe easily again.

And sometimes I wonder if God was winking us
With this new little one when He gave us this child.
For the date of the beginning of the second trimester
Was March 2 -- the same date as the lost one's due date.

Sometimes, when it is quiet, I think about this
and wonder.

On March 2, I wrote about a boy
Who is visited by the ghost of his sister
And he was so sad because he couldn't
Talk with her or touch her or tell her
How much he loved her because he could
Barely stand her brilliance. He was trapped in
Darkness and she was too bright to behold
And he wept because more than anything
He wanted to hold her in his arms and yet she was
Far beyond him and he just couldn't.

Then I set away my computer and wept
for my own ghost who was far beyond me.
And wondered about the path ahead.

I never told you about the child that was lost
Because I knew how you would react.
You would lecture me and call me names
And insist that I was at fault for the death
Of a child that should have never existed.
That I was greedy and that I should stopped
Long ago and it was my fault for not recognizing
How old I was and it was my fault for embracing life
When life was a futile, fleeting thing.

For months, I held it in and didn't say a word
Because I knew that you would say.
But I never expected that lecture to come
When I called to share my joy. I had reached
the second trimester! The baby was there!
And then you lamented the baby's existence
And worried about the baby's life, and claimed
It would be my fault if something went wrong.

And I hated you then because you didn't understand
What real loss was. For you grieved the child that lived
And was loved as a mistake and not the miracle
That he is. For you are right in one regard:

Life can be futile and fleeting and full of pain.
But it is a worthy adventure that should be embraced
With vigor and energy, for with life there is hope.
We are given but mere moments to live
With a breath of wind, we are gone, but for now
We have bones and flesh. I can run and dance and
Hold babies and sing. It is folly to mourn the living
When Death waits for us all! So let us love each other
And grasp for God in the hope that this life
may continue with Him and that Death will
Separate us no more.

And let us welcome the children that come
With gladness, for we are all children of God.

Early pregnancy feels a bit like
waiting. It is quiet and not much
happens and sometimes you wonder
if perhaps you are even pregnant at all.

Then, just as your bump begins to grow
you feel little baby kicks inside
that feel like there are butterflies
dancing in your belly

and at that moment, all is right in the world.

Can a woman ever forget the child that she
Once bore in her womb?

Science says that the DNA of each child
crosses to the mother so that
Their DNA mingles with each other
So that years afterwards, mothers will carry
Cells of their children with them.

And sometimes I feel bad to feel joy
For without the other one's death, this one
Could never exist.

But then, they are both close to my heart --
Only one was meant for God.

There is comfort in watching bones
and flesh moving around and wriggling
in black and white. To see the screen flit
from bone to organ to skin in a mere moment
while watching the woman counting
how many valves in the baby's heart
or numbering the lobes in the brain.

Soon I will be able to count each finger and toe
and kiss them as they wriggle about
in the daylight. But for now, he is a secret,
hidden deep inside my womb and in the darkness
we can feel each other breathe.

For my rainbow baby who will grow up
on a farm, I will make you a blanket
full of color. There will be a red barn and
a yellow sun and so much green grass.

And the animals! Chickens and cows
and pigs and sheep will be woven up for you
in bright appliques so that you can touch
each animal and wonder about life.
Off to the side, there will be an old
apple tree brimming with bright red apples
just like the old apple trees that dot the farm

and you will know with every stitch
that you are loved.

Someone asked me the other day
About my pregnancy -- she wanted to know
How I was doing and about the baby and
Any other detail that I wanted to share...

And I wasn't sure what to say.

The baby is alive. He is healthy with
A working heart that beats and when we
Listen to it, it sounds like galloping horses.
He moves and wiggles about and I can almost
Feel him. And he is wonderful.

And what to say about myself?
Pregnancy is hard. Sometimes my limbs
Don't cooperate or I feel stretched out
Or I just want to sleep all day, and yet
It is better than loss and it is hard to complain
When the memory still makes my soul ache.

They say that there are seasons of life --
a season of joy, of grief, that pass us by.
But what if joy can be mingled with grief?
Or grief mingled with joy?

What if to love fully means to surrender
our hearts and open them up to be
vulnerable and soft. To allow ourselves to
rejoice in the little things and go mad with grief
with loss.

What if to live fully means to
accept the trickles and torrents that come with
the mere fact that we all have soft bodies that
sometimes fail, for life is full of failures
and none of us will live forever. But we can
live nonetheless and love fully

for we were meant to be loved.
From the moment that we were conceived
to the point of our deaths, we crave that
connection -- and so let us be

unafraid to love.