The space where our babies should be somehow starts feeling less like a gaping hole and more like an invisible fullness as time goes on. We want to hear their names, we want to think about them and smile, we want to see them in the world around us. Milestones hit us like bricks and time feels jumbled. How has it already been so long? And who would they be today?
Every day, every minute, another mother joins us in this club. It's a club no one wants to be a part of, but the love and compassion within it are unlike any other. The instant bond that ignites between two women when we sit together in this pain is almost spiritual. Sorrow like this, grief like ours, carves profound depth into our souls. We're no longer flat, shiny objects, but we're instead embossed by our loss. Somehow more beautiful for it.
If not wasted, grief can be an incredible gift. After the initial haze, the lens through which we see the world sharpens our view. It's almost like that first victorious gulp of air after being underwater too long, so much more treasured than the sip before. In grief, the spirit of the Earth somehow reveals herself to us. Sunsets are technicolor, wind is euphoric, and rain is an echoing chorus of our hearts. Rainbows and butterflies seem to show up just for us just when we need them most.
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You would have been two months old today. You'd have found your favorite pacifier by now, and I'd be grateful that I was finally able to get those first (beautiful) 6+ hour stretches of sleep that make me feel like a Disney Princess with birds tweeting above my head. Instead, I'm clocking in 12+ hours every night because sleeping is decidedly easier than my waking hours. We should be cleaning up your blowouts, instead we're dealing with our own shit. At this point, you would be finding your voice - squawking and squealing and making our hearts explode. Our hearts have still detonated, but for different reasons. I should be looking at your face for most of my day, instead I have to search for you elsewhere. I see you in songs, in the sky, in the sea, in your sister's face, in your daddy's arms. I'll keep looking for you for as long as I live. Being without you is hard, but being your mom is one of my favorite things about myself. I love you, McCoy Casey.
A post shared by Kara Bosworth (@karakeoughboz) on Jun 6, 2020 at 7:44am PDT
You never know how many people love you until you experience a loss like this. Most people don't get the pleasure of realizing how treasured they are until their dying day. And in a way, we do die a little bit the day we lose a child; the old us is gone. But the new us can be better. The new us can leave pettiness where it belongs. The new us can see beauty where others might pass it by. The new us can love again, despite knowing the risk. That kind of bravery didn't exist in us before. But alas, here we are. Never moving on but moving with. Grief is like going on a bear hunt: We can't go over it, we can't go under it, we have to go through it. Squish, squash.
Yes, being a mother with empty arms becomes a strange juxtaposition. More joyful despite suffering, more alive despite death and more loving despite loss. We ask ourselves, \"Where are we supposed to put all this love, all this love that we had reserved for them?\" The answer becomes so clear: all around us, of course, and into them, still. Most importantly — and with no hesitations — we must put the love back into ourselves once again. Terry Tempest Williams insists, \"Grief dares us to love once more.\"
So, to grief, we respond, \"You triple dog dare me?\"
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At four months old, we'd be seeing the Real McCoy by now, the face we could look back on later and say \"Oh, see, right here, that's when he starts looking like Mack.\" Instead, every bulky blonde boy I see is you. That's just one of the million cuts of losing you so soon, I'm forced to imagine the faces of your stolen future. Your first gummy smile is a mystery. The sound of your voice, like the roar of the ocean in a seashell: it's just in my head and only if I listen really closely. The paler folds of your sun-kissed and chubby wrists stay tucked away and hidden. The curls bouncing on your two year old head, cut short. The shape of your legs, crushingly resistant to the metamorphosis that would take you from baby-to-boyhood right before my eyes. It's all a blur now, all the ways you could have been you. You in your wedding day suit, dancing with me to a song we picked together... that's all just a dream. And that's what you're starting to feel like now - a dream. Did this really happen? Did we ever really have you at all? The answer is a resounding yes, of course. And we always will. I notice that your name is our new \"Hallelujah!\" Every time the world gives us something beautiful, we shout your name. A butterfly floating in our periphery, \"McCoy!\" Rows of lavender in unexpected places, McCoy! A rainbow over our house, McCoy! A pod of dolphins on the horizon, McCoy! A warm breeze, McCoy! Lillian's last round of chemo treatments, McCoy! A pregnant friend, McCoy! And (so slowly) finding our joy among our pain - McCoy! We see you, baby. We love the way you're showing up for us and opening our eyes to the beauty all around us. We'll be seeing you again some day, McCoy(!).
A post shared by Kara Bosworth (@karakeoughboz) on Aug 6, 2020 at 6:47am PDT
