This Time Last Year

This time last year, my baby was already dead inside me, but I didn't know it. 
Now my baby is dead and I can't unknow it.

This time last year, I had an empty nursery.
Now, too, I have an empty nursery. 

This time last year the skies were blue and the sun was shining and spring was coming... 
Right now the skies are blue and the sun is shining and spring is coming... 

This time last year I had hope. I didn't know that in just a little over twenty-four hours, my midwife wouldn't be able to find my baby's heartbeat. 

But still, a part of me knew - our little mommy group had lost one precious life already, but I told myself it couldn't happen again. Lightning couldn't strike twice. But I was afraid. My usually active baby had slowed down so much... but this was labor, pre-labor, I told myself, it would be over soon...

And then it was over. Forever over and now I relive it all, over and over.


My grief has grown less sharp around the edges over this past year, like a knife blade worn dull from use. I cut myself with a butter-knife nowadays. That's progress, isn't it?

This time last year I was oblivious. Today, I wish I still was.

Today, I am spending a gorgeous spring afternoon sitting in the dark and watching movies about the holocaust and crying.

Maybe I just want to be reminded - there are worse horrors. I didn't have to choose - who should die, my son or my daughter? My son didn't know that he was going to die - he didn't suffer (please, god, let that last be true...) and he isn't suffering anymore.

Or maybe I just want to see fear and hopelessness and the pain of loss mirrored a million times on a million faces. Maybe then I can recognize my own face in the mirror - who is this woman who has aged exponentially in the past year, who fell down a rabbit hole, who crossed over to the other side and hasn't managed to find her way back through hell...?

Who is she? Who am I?

This time last year, I thought I knew.

Now, I don't think I'll ever know.