Since the Miscarriage

by Roberta Bright

Hello, I wrote this at 2:00 in the morning. I don't really have a title for it, and it may be a little too morbid . It's more of a short story than a description of my miscarriage. but it tells what has happened to me since the miscarriage.

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999

She didn't know if it was the blood streaming out of her body ,down the shower drain to nowhere for the second time that month or just the sheer exhaustion of life in general that finally shut her down before waking her completely.

It was as if her body needed to remind her that she was too old to nourish another life into existence , and that was the reason for having her 2nd period in one month's time . Never mind that 6 healthy children had come into this world from her. Kicking and screaming their indignities for having been disturbed from their warm slumber. The one that she lost seemed to be the only one that existed for her and the only one that needed her.

The other 6 would survive . They were old enough to know how to care for themselves, old enough to nurture themselves. But the one who couldn't hold on, the one who tumbled from her body on a too warm fall afternoon. This one still needed her.

She knew she was supposed to let go. Let the child's soul move on to it's next mission. But she also knew she couldn't. For if she let go, then this child, this fetus, this embryo would truly be lost forever, as if it had never existed.

It was almost 3 months after the 6 week old embryo lost it's hold on life but yet to her, it was still alive , resting in her belly. Growing, changing, becoming aware.

The Dr. said it would take many months for her body to return to normal , that it was just hormones gone haywire, and that was the reason for what was happening to her. But she knew different. She knew that the spirit of the child who had other things to do wouldn't leave her body alone.

It was he who made her bleed. Trying to force into her in his own quiet way the knowledge and acceptance that he no longer took up residence in her womb. Acceptance that his tiny little self was wrapped in cloth, tucked into a special box, hidden away from the eyes of her children and the man who had co-created this wonder.

She began to have dreams. Dreams of caring for others who were wasting away from some strange disease. Strangers who's final moment was signaled by shrinking into mummies, weighing no more than a feather pillow. In her dreams as she lifted the bodies to place them in their beds to give them some dignity, they were weightless, as if non existent. There were dreams where her other children were grown adults, and had children of their own that ran wild, and cursed their parents with every utterance that sprang from their mouths.

In her dreams she asked her children " Why are they behaving this way?" and her children replied " We raised them the way you taught us." " You taught us that if something tragic occurred in our lives, that we were allowed to retreat into ourselves, and that those who depended on us to stay sane would find their own way."

She always awoke from these dreams filled with sorrow for what she had done to her Grandchildren through her children. She knew that if she didn't rise out of her grief, then not only would her children be lost to her, then so would her children's children.

Her living children needed her and the child who was meant for another time, another place needed her to release him.

In the early morning hours of the 3rd day of the mysterious onset of what she considered a betrayal of her body, the woman rose, donned her warm robe and slippers, and slipped quietly from the bed she shared with the man who also grieved. He grieved not only for the lost child, but also for the woman he knew was leaving him a small piece at a time.

She kissed his eyes, and padded softly across the room to the closet. She quietly shifted some old shoe boxes aside and found what she was looking for. A small package wrapped in brown paper, hidden in a box known only to her. She raised the box from it's hiding place and tucked it under her arm. She eased down the hallway, stopping to peek through the doorways at her sleeping children. She knew that today would be different for her, and for them.

She left the house, stopping only to get an old spoon from the kitchen. She shivered in the cold winter air and made her way to her most beloved rose bush. There she knelt in the cold dark dirt and began digging a small hole, near the roots.

She placed her precious bundle in the hole and covered it with soil. " There you go, little one" she whispered to the winter air. As a single tear rolled down her cheek and settled into the ground where her child's grave was, she swore she heard an infant's laugh as the sun slowly rose to bathe her in warmth.