For those who have ever lost children, the kind no one expects you to cry over.
Just because they were not squeezed out of the birth canal - eyes shut, hands
bunched into tiny fists, drawing in a first breath. Ah! If you have ever heard
it, you will know that though he tries with all the air his lungs can hold, the
voice of a newborn is always soft. But sometimes – God help us – we lose them long
before even this. Yes. For those who never got to hear their babies cry, this
is for you.
A child begins
in one’s mind. Let no one tell you different. In the many nights you lie awake
thinking. Some people are more fortunate than others. Don’t you know? Some
people never have to wonder if everything is okay. I tell you, that question, it
will lead you back to many memories. Of how you ‘saved’ yourself like they told
you to. And you will ask – Is this now my reward? Of how you didn’t ‘save’
yourself like they told you to. And you will ask – Is this now my punishment?
Till the morning
in the bathroom when – hallelujah! – a different answer is there in your hands.
Tell me, do you know that morning? So quiet, you can hear yourself breathe? Do
you know it? To believe and, in the very same instance, not believe? To look
into each other’s eyes, as happy for the moment as you are fearful of the
future? Let me tell you - even now, when all you have is double lines on a piece
of plastic, you do not call your baby, ‘It’. No. She is a girl. You know this.
You know this because you have seen her already, in all your waking dreams. And
you know what she would sound like, that day when she first calls you, Da…Da.
I tell you, these
are not the only things you are able to imagine, even now, though your gynie
has not yet pointed to a distinct quiver on the grey monitor and said, ‘Do you
see it? Eh? That’s your baby’s heartbeat.’ Tell those who do not know, there’s
no longer wait than for that 7th week. And, while we wait, we keep
it quiet. Why share the news when we have not yet seen her heart? So, sometimes,
our child will live and die only between us. And we will sit there quietly,
quivering lips, and listen to yet another doctor saying, ‘Don’t worry. Do you
know how many people it happens to? Don’t worry. You will have another one.’
And I thought –
Can I not stop, even for a little while, sit on this bench right here and
mourn? Which taboo will I be breaking? For you never saw the light. You never
saw my face. You never reached out and took a fistful of my beard. That is what
babies do, you know, when their heads can still fit in the small of our palms;
they turn those heads, each time we graze a finger against their cheeks, they
turn those heads towards our fingers, with mouths wide open - did you know?
That there is a
security camera somewhere that holds proof of my everlasting love for you? Not
that you will ever watch it. Or laugh at me, a grown man, hunched over an ATM,
weeping. I do not know how to cry. What I do is grit my teeth, and swallow
hard. And, still, it surprises me, so much so I take a startled finger to my
cheeks each time to verify. Tears? Hah. They help us let go. Because life walks
around like that, you know, putting things into the hands of some, and taking
things out of the hands of others. What can we do? So, I cried for you on a
Sunday afternoon. And let life take you.
Yes.
For you, our
unborn children, whom they say we are not to mourn; only to forget – quickly,
quickly – and move on.
This is for you.
Sculpture - "Memorial For Unborn Children" by Martin Hudacek
Image taken from: https://evenifministries.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/memorial-for-unborn-children.jpg
