I was planning on telling more of her story tonight - my sweet Mia - my Amelia Mae (Yes, her full name is Amelia Mae, but we call her Mia for short.)
Last night, on the one month anniversary, I wasn't planning on writing a letter, or lighting a candle. but I did. As I wrote in my journal, I began to write a letter to the one who will never be. I told her what I can remember about the day she was born. I started the letter out with the words, "I wish I had more stories to tell." Oh how I wish I had more stories to tell, that I had payed attention to every tiny detail when I was pregnant with her. Instead, I shrugged it off, assuring myself I would have plenty of time to enjoy this when she was born. I was sick during my pregnancy - some days unable to get up out of bed. I was miserable. I was going to enjoy it when she was born. Oh but how I wish I had taken more time to remember when she was alive, safe inside of me. oh how I wish...
But that wasn't why I was going to write here tonight. Tonight anyway, I am not going to share the story of my daughter's birth. Maybe one day...
The last few days, I've been thinking a lot about my truth. I've been reading many blogs, from other baby loss mama's, finding comfort in the words they wrote and in knowing they are steps ahead of me, that they made it through these dark days too.
Every time I try to whisper her name out loud, my brain jumps in, "Liar! She wasn't real!"
I can't silence this awful voice as it hisses at me.
Over and over, every time this voice speaks in my head, I am finding myself whispering these words, "She was real to me. I love her, I miss her. She was my truth."
And she was my truth.
My truth is this: I am young. I am not an experienced mama, I don't have any other children. And I don't know why i feel as if that is impotent, but tonight it is. I was a young mama, but I had no doubt in my mind what I wanted. I wanted her. From the moment I found out, I dreamt of the day of her birth. I imagined the joy I would feel as I held her for the first time, the rosy pink babe, the gleeful mama. I never imagined I would lose her, that instead of a crying baby, I would give birth to a dead one.
Maybe this isn't making any sense tonight. I just wanted to share a little bit of my truth, for you to know a little bit about who I am.
Emily, your Mia was real. Is real. She IS your baby girl and you remain her mother. I am so verry sorry that she could not stay, that you did not get the millions of opportunities to memorize your life with her...it's just not right.
ReplyDeleteMy son Ethan died 4 months ago, and I remember so well shouting out loud to the world that "he was real." Because so few met him, it seemed like I needed to prove his existence somehow. But Ethan is real, as is Mia.
Remembering Mia with you tonight. -- Annie (fellow mama from Glow)
What a beautiful name. I've always liked the name Amelia, she is the heroine in my favourite novel.
ReplyDeleteAmelia Mae, your Mia, was real. She was. She was a person, a person who is loved and remembered. And it may feel important, or it may just feel important tonight, but I don't think it is. I am not young, I have two living children, my daughter died quite a while ago now. But I am still her mother. I am still her mother just as much as any of the others. And I still want her.
And sometimes I think that my daughter's death made me an 'experienced mama' before I even had a chance to bring either of the others home. Because I knew what I had when I held my living children. In a way that I don't think many other people could. And that is not the sort of being 'experienced' that I would wish on anybody but it is . . . . a strange and beautiful and horrible and aching gift? To be a mother in the full knowledge of what a amazingly fragile and wondrous state that is?
Now I'm wondering if I'm made any sense at all. But as this comment is nearly as long as your post I think I should leave it at that x