I march into autumn convinced that summer is the best season, but find my senses being wooed by a few cool breezes, the vibrant shades of leaves falling to the ground, and weekly Husker football games. I don’t want to be happy as the days grow shorter and my beloved and warm sunshine veers to the south. But fall charms me anyhow and sooner or later I submit to its loveliness.
Something else comes at me in the fall though, and it’s October, the bittersweet October. More and more women are beginning to talk about pregnancy and infant loss this month, which is, fittingly enough I suppose, the month I miscarried ten years ago now. My body remembers before my mind remembers, and even when I recall that October was when I miscarried, I don’t * feel* like it should be a big deal. It was ten years ago. And honestly, it means different things to me now because life looks very different now.
Ten years ago Livia was two. Jeremy and I were within the first eight years of marriage. Our family was young and we were going to grow.
In 2016, Livia is in middle school. Jeremy and I have been married for 18 years and our family is not going to grow. At least in traditional, expected terms it will not.
I’ve played the “What If” game a little bit this fall. What if that baby was alive? She (let’s call this baby a “she”) would be nine. Livia would have a sister and we would have a second child who was permanently ours. It’s a strange but sweet thought, an alternate reality that doesn’t demand much time or consideration, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
We still miss that baby. She was a little fetus with a heart that we heard beating in ultrasounds. We wonder what this child will look like in glory someday. Will unborn babies look like babies or adults? Is there a cutoff for getting that new glorified body or does every human fertilized egg get one? For now it’s all a mystery to us—from the missing to the heavenly existence.
I came across this small write-up of my miscarriage experience and letter to Baby that I contributed to A Musing Maralee and it all still holds true. That trip to Arizona still reminds me of being newly pregnant, picking out pumpkins still reminds me of the twinge of morning sickness I had ten years ago, and Fall Fest at Zion Church still reminds me the one where I was grieving, but not grieving alone.
I carry that child with me every fall. I think my very cells will not let me forget her. I think about all the women around me who carry memories in their cells as well, memories that brush them with sadness and joy and guilt and pain as the seasons come and go. This is life, the bitter and the sweet, the memories that combine smiles with tears.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I made my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
-Psalm 139:7-16
