October you will forever be dear to me. Your cool crisp air blowing with swirls of amber and gold, though underlying there will always be a tinge of blue. October is pregnancy loss month and ironically when the greatest loss of my life occurred. October 27th, 2017 never falls far from my memory. Even on my most joyful of days, I can feel the familiar hollow ache that none can fill. On a dark, rainy October night I held him for the first and last time. His perfect little frame quiet and still in peace.
Before this night, I had no knowledge grief existed of this magnitude. I did not know the pain of this intensity. Some days I yearn for who I was before him, so blissfully unaware of the hardships life can bring. Though if you were to ask if I would do it all over, knowing how things would end, my answer would undoubtedly be yes. Every day of the 35 weeks I carried him and each hour of the 12 I labored was worth the precious moments I spent holding him, memorizing his face.
My child died that day. And in the second I learned of his passing, the woman I am today was born. My eyes may have a trace of sadness, but they see so vividly. When I gaze at the songbird as he glides into the sunset, a single tear may fall from the reminder of what magnificent sights my love is seeing without me. Gentle rain on a summer evening, a sure nod from my boy. In the early days, just after my youngest child was born, I sat and absorbed his every whimper and cry. My ear appreciated the sound, so full of life in all its splendor. My hands linger a bit longer as they feel the waves of the ocean rush between them, a true awareness of just how fleeting every second passes.
Every moment since you left has been shifted, my love. Every breath I draw in follows with sharp pain, reminding me of the absence of your own. I knew you would alter the woman I have become, but I never imagined how distinctively. Through all of the despair, the good that was you remains with me. A new perspective on life you have given me, one I did not anticipate but you gifted me with my little one, the perspective of the bereaved mother.
