Silent desolation almost to the point where even the sound of a pin dropping to the plush carpet is enough to drive her to madness. Shutters, windows, curtains, blinds; anything needed to keep the rays of the sun out are drawn tight shut. Swathed and literally bound underneath two layers of bedding she lies shivering as the cold creeps in from inside her very bones. Even the tears that choke out of her eyes drench her in a shroud of despair. A soft, cautious knock sounds on the bedroom door which she tries to block out of her consciousness. It continues in a relentless but gentle pace only to pause briefly to give way to a slow creak; the husband tiptoes gingerly into the room clad in the same clothes he’d been wearing since the night before. He settles beside his distraught wife who refuses to surface from the cocoon she’d built around her fetal positioned body to resemble a womb of security. Except instead of flesh or bone this was made of two cotton quilts which she had picked years before in a sale at JC Penney . They were chosen over a much more fancier looking silk bedding set that specifically said ‘Dry Clean Only’. She’d vehemently settled for cotton ones because when it came to kids bedding had to be able to take heavy messes and spills.
How insignificant all those arguments on those purchases seem now, now that the very reason for all that fussy nesting and protective acts was gone, extinguished like a candle in the wind. The baby or it as everyone seemed to be referring to was gone, really gone hurtling into depths of darkness from whence there way no return. An ‘act of nature’, they called it, the step-sister tag to the much more dreaded tern ‘miscarriage’ which actually seemed to sound more like ‘mistake‘,’ miss-step’. ‘Miss….’almost a forgetful or avoidable tone to it. The first emotion after the physical trauma had been blame followed by anger at the powers above for even bestowing such a gift and then painfully wrenching it away. Why me? She screamed after she’d woken up only to know that the little lima bean with a heart beat she’d seen on the ultrasound monitor was no longer a part of her loins. There would be no sleepless nights or dazed days that they’d heard their friends with children go on and on at parties. Just the empty dereliction of the room they’d planned to convert into a nursery and the banishment of the few baby items they’d received in advance from their respective parents. What will follow would be the words of sympathy and the awkward silences from those who’d known about the pregnancy. Little did they know that this was a scar left not just in her vacant womb, but one with spikes so sharp that both the husband and the wife would need all the therapy in the world to help them through this time of hell. Time, everyone said , would heal all the pain, wash away the bitter tears and be the stinging salve that they so desperately need. Until then he will stay patiently by the side of the quilt cocooned wife who refuses the world so she can purge all those emotions from her insides. He will place a reassuring hand on her hunched form, a hand that also shakes with the same grief of having lost a part of him. But he will keep a stoic composure right until his wife regains hers and then he can collapse into her arms and sob his heart out so loud that every father who has ever lost a child will feel a stirring in their souls.
How insignificant all those arguments on those purchases seem now, now that the very reason for all that fussy nesting and protective acts was gone, extinguished like a candle in the wind. The baby or it as everyone seemed to be referring to was gone, really gone hurtling into depths of darkness from whence there way no return. An ‘act of nature’, they called it, the step-sister tag to the much more dreaded tern ‘miscarriage’ which actually seemed to sound more like ‘mistake‘,’ miss-step’. ‘Miss….’almost a forgetful or avoidable tone to it. The first emotion after the physical trauma had been blame followed by anger at the powers above for even bestowing such a gift and then painfully wrenching it away. Why me? She screamed after she’d woken up only to know that the little lima bean with a heart beat she’d seen on the ultrasound monitor was no longer a part of her loins. There would be no sleepless nights or dazed days that they’d heard their friends with children go on and on at parties. Just the empty dereliction of the room they’d planned to convert into a nursery and the banishment of the few baby items they’d received in advance from their respective parents. What will follow would be the words of sympathy and the awkward silences from those who’d known about the pregnancy. Little did they know that this was a scar left not just in her vacant womb, but one with spikes so sharp that both the husband and the wife would need all the therapy in the world to help them through this time of hell. Time, everyone said , would heal all the pain, wash away the bitter tears and be the stinging salve that they so desperately need. Until then he will stay patiently by the side of the quilt cocooned wife who refuses the world so she can purge all those emotions from her insides. He will place a reassuring hand on her hunched form, a hand that also shakes with the same grief of having lost a part of him. But he will keep a stoic composure right until his wife regains hers and then he can collapse into her arms and sob his heart out so loud that every father who has ever lost a child will feel a stirring in their souls.
