On this day in 1986, I gave birth to a stillborn baby boy in my late second trimester, a few days after the most horrifying thing a pregnant woman can experience: discovering, through a routine check-up, that my baby had died. In previous months, I had heard his heartbeat, strong and steady, through the ultrasound scope or whatever it was. There was only silence at the last visit. From then on, my mind and soul were broken, despite the births of my last two children.
I think now that there is no limit on grief, that we experience upwellings all the time, and no one has the right to say, "Aren't you over that?" Many losses become a shadow-jewel that decorates the heart. And no one has the right to tell anyone else to just get over things, especially this thing.
My son was to be born in November 1986, but this day was the day of his birth.
