As the Years Roll On...

Those among you kind enough to have stuck with reading my blog over the years, will know that I like to write something, every year, to commemorate the birthday of Grace, our tiny girl, who didn't make it into this world, as she should have done. You can read previous years' posts here, here, here and here if you want to!

This year, I've experimented with a different form of writing, not with the aim of eliciting sympathy from everyone who reads, but more to show the long term impact of this sort of loss. I think those of us who have lost babies can sometimes minimise our own pain, playing it down, because we never really 'met' our babies, or knew them. But the trauma is real and the pain long-lasting. Everything I've written is real and true, although I've framed it in the form of a story. I hope it provides a bit of an insight into the long journey to healing that baby loss involves.  

Nine years on, it's different again. I'm grateful for the many hours of counselling and prayer I've had through the journey. There will always be more layers to face. I know I don't have to face them alone.

Thanks for reading.

In the yellowing photograph I hold, a woman kneels in front of a Christmas tree, unaware that she stands on a threshold, about to enter a life she hadn’t imagined or planned.

That week, she was relishing life and all the festive season had to offer.  She had journeyed with friends to a freezing, snow-covered farm and watched her toddler climb on hay bales, ride tractors in the yard, sit on Santa’s knee.  She had warmed herself with coffee, talking and laughing loudly, pregnant with hope.

In the photo, the one she can’t erase from her memory, though she rarely looks at it for real, she is smiling and the Christmas tree lights, behind her, twinkle.  Her growing bump protrudes from under her soft, beige cardigan.  Like the lights, she glows.

At a carol service at church, she inspects the bump of another, expectant like her, comparing due-dates and ailments, confessing fears.  The one she was about to hit, head on, like a juggernaut, hadn’t yet crossed her mind.

The last normal day dawned. She had lunch with friends, her doubts growing, resounding louder and louder in her head, until she couldn’t ignore them, even with her trademark optimism.  A phone call was made.  A doctor’s visit followed.  A frantic search for a heartbeat yielded none.  The hospital came next, her toddler seeing his baby sister on the ultrasound monitor, for the first time – but the life within her was extinguished.

A strange Christmas followed, with pain-filled nights then a silent birth.

I time travel to the Christmas that follows, watching her pain out-work, fast forwarding through scenes of her life; how she had wished she could do just that, instead of walk them painfully, one by one.  The first anniversary of that Christmas hit her hard; though she was pregnant again, her innocent naivety had gone.  In her mind, there was no longer any guarantee that the story of her growing bump would end as she hoped and dreamed.

I watch her as she wrestles through the night, remembering the birth – every, vivid detail of the too-quick, too-silent cuddles, playing through her mind, prickling her eyes with hot tears, preventing healing sleep from taking over.

Another Christmas swings into view – Christmas songs, Christmas lights.  The jollity expected causing physical lurches in her stomach, at times.  There are two children now, in a different house, in a different place.  New memories are made, through the cold December.  The pain stays in the background, mostly, now – more of a dull ache.  Then, when something triggers it, it bursts its banks, shocking her again and again with its devastating power.  She thinks she should have grasped this by now, learnt to ride the waves.

She cries by the fire, late at night, remembering, still, the little girl she didn’t get to keep.  She sees, now, too, silver threads of hope, wound round trees, guiding her back to safety, normality, when the forest of memory she stumbles through begins to feel too dense, too dark.  She watches for the glimmers of light on the threads, to guide her to clearings, where she can rest.

A few more Christmases flash by – she tries different things to get through.  She avoids all things Christmassy and feels like Scrooge, empty and alone.  She embraces all things Christmassy, hurtling herself into the season at break-neck speed, hoping her emotions will catch up, as she buys Christmas jumpers and pyjamas and socks.  They don’t and, when the door is shut, she cries in the darkness.  She remembers the Christmas story, though and clings to it - how the Light of the World entered darkness, just like hers, to help her find a way through.  This helps, somehow.  Sometimes the light feels bright.  Sometimes it fades to a flicker.  But she knows it guides her still.

Eight Christmases have come and gone.  She knows a lot has changed; she knows the Great Healer has worked and mended, restored and comforted, put the broken pieces back together.  The ninth approaches.  She is a different person to the expectant, hope-filled, beige-cardiganed girl in the photo.  Part of her yearns for that hope-filled, youthful outlook, absent of pain.  But most of her knows that the changes her story has brought about in her, are good; more wrinkles, more heartache, yes – but more depth, too, more compassion, more empathy, more love.  And deeper trust, too, in the One who keeps unravelling the silver thread, guiding and holding her, closely, through another anniversary and through it all.

Remembering Grace Tennant, Born sleeping on the 27th December, 2009 ❤