There is a tear in my soul.
They want me to smile,
all the time, they want me to be fine,
this world.
But I am not
(though I am.)
There is a weeping tear.
A wound unhealed and breaking
ever deeper,
every day.
I will tell you this:
I am fine.
And I am,
six colours of the rainbow, fine.
The seventh colour.
It is a golden tar.
An aching soul,
searching.
An aching child
within the hardened walls
of a happy one.
It is raining, and I am alone.
And there is sorrow in these parts, and knowing that life is terrible and beautiful, all at the same time.
I am alive with all of that.
I am alive with the sorrow and all the quiet of all the world.
I shall drink some coffee.
I shall drink it well, and hold my cup with love.
In the shadow of love
is the aching
of fear.
And I hold you,
love.
I hold you
and your beautiful tears.
I send my heart
to those in pain.
Let me sit beside you in the dark.
Let me remind you:
darkness is the ship
to a bright new day.
And so we rise.
And so we gather all hope and find our way to peace again.
We think we have broken, we think we have lost our way.
Such beauty lies beyond that which we call failure.
Such strength waits for us patiently beneath the rubble.
Do not be fooled by the darkness.
It is only there so that we may know the light.
How small we are in the largeness of it all.
Our tiny cries barely heard over roaring humanity.
But we each have a sadness, each of us, true.
Of your sadness, I say: I hear it.
I see it, as clearly as I see you.
And you must know that in my ears
it is as loud as it always has been to you.
It is as loud as it needs to be for my heart
to mend it for you.
A brief note before my story begins. A note to the mothers, a note to the fathers. To those who have birthed live children, and those whose young ones were taken too soon. This story— my story, our story—may be distressing to some, particularly those who’ve experienced the birth of a sweet babe, born sleeping.
If this is you, darling human, please feel free to leave this post here, taking all my love and comfort with you. To those who wish to stay, thank you for holding my heart during these moments. It is a gift to share the depths of my humanity. It is a gift to know my heart has been seen, held and loved.
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
C.S Lewis
***
I’ve asked if my baby has died and no one is saying a thing.
The midwife moves the doppler across my stomach as I stare at the wall lit by dim orange light (my favourite kind.) There is no sound, no heart beat. There are no voices. There is silence, loud as thunder.
I ask again. Has my baby died? Still, no one says a thing. There are three midwives there. Not one of them has said a thing.
My body begins to push, and once again I am taken by the strength of the contractions. If my baby has died, I think, then I need them to take this pain away. But it’s too late for pain relief, I know that. I’m already pushing. I am on my own, no matter what is happening here.
There is a stillness in the room that wasn’t there before, and I know it is the feeling of sorrow. My sister is across the room, and so is my husband; the sadness is theirs and mine, and maybe the midwives’, mixed together with an odd cocktail of hope and confusion. Is the baby alive? Why on earth won’t they say anything?
Finally I am asked to change positions. They want me to push. Finally they have found a heart beat. A little slow, they carefully tell me, but a heart beat, thank goodness. I will need to give a great big push, they say, and I am okay with that because the midwife has said the only words I have wanted to hear. ‘Brooke. Your baby is okay.’
At least two minutes.
That is how long I thought the very worst.
Now, we move on.
As I breathe between contractions— between pushes—my eyes fall upon the midwife’s necklace, a butterfly on a thin, silver chain. It makes me think of the angel chain in my sisters hand, the one I’ve given her to hold, so Nan can be with me. It had been Nan’s right before she died. I had given it to her. Now it was mine.
And there is the stillness again. In the butterfly, in the thought of my Nan’s chain.
Another moment divine.
***
I gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl, that night.
She is perfect, and was so from the moment she was born.
I will never forget those moments of indescribable togetherness and comfort.
Was there a divine presence in the room? I’ll never know.
But I will always remember.
I will always be amazed.
I saw her when I closed my eyes,
I felt her in the wind.
And I knew I had to tell her
how tired I am,
and how I never imagined
life would be so hard.
I had to tell her
how I am in love
with them, and with life.
But how tired I am, and how I miss her.
Oh, how I miss her,
oh, how I do.
I saw her when I closed my eyes.
I felt her in the wind.
The perfection of life is beyond the boundaries of good and bad, sad or happy.
2015. My fourth miscarriage. The loss of pregnancy at ten weeks.
The doctor looked into my soul and told me, ‘I know the obstetrician for you. Here are his details. If this was happening to my sister, I would be telling her the very same thing. Go to this man. He will treat you beautifully.’
Love.
Held by a stranger, through pain.
Never be afraid of the fullness of life.
Never be afraid to love beyond it all.
Sorrow is quiet and soft.
How strange, that during the saddest times, the quiet is the loudest voice of all.
Tonight, I send my voice into the stillness.
To honour the love and the sorrow that lingers when we lose our most precious hearts.
Quiet, the place where unconditional love floats free.
Peace. Our soft and gentle, forever home.
brooke-cutler.com 