August 19th

Won't you join us in remembering today?

This effort really struck a chord with me, especially in the last few days. From the project website, the idea is that...

"By having this special day once a year we get people speaking about pregnancy, infant and child loss. And by doing this we break those walls down so that people are not afraid to speak about these children anymore."

Earlier this week I got the chance to spend over an hour chatting with my brother on the phone. He's halfway across the country in Denver, and I'm in a hotel room two time zones away on a business trip. It was nearly midnight for me, but I just didn't want the call to end. It was nothing especially unusual, no major topics of conversation, just general "hey how's it going? what have you been up to lately?"

Except that at one point, Aiden became part of what we were talking about. I don't even remember what the topic was at the moment, but hearing my brother say Aiden's name literally made me catch my breath, and I realized just how much I miss hearing it. How much I wish I could talk about my nephew all the time, like I'd be "allowed" to if he were any 19-month old tugging on his dad's pant leg while he was on the phone, not a box of ashes sitting next to a candle and a picture.

Me, the pushy this-is-the-way-I-want-things-to-be advocate for babyloss parents, had unknowingly allowed myself to be silenced for weeks. To have my nephew's place in my life quieted by the pressures of comfortable manners. And I hadn't even realized it.

This is such a shame. The effect of the babyloss "taboo" on these families is so profound that I find it hard to explain to anyone who doesn't personally experience it. What makes it even harder is that no one purposely means to do this. It's not a matter of changing hearts, it's a matter of opening them, which I feel like is in many ways harder.

Please support the Day of Hope effort. Please understand what it means. Because the simple gift of hearing my nephew's name was enough to put a few of the broken pieces back together for me that day, and I could wish nothing less for all of my babyloss friends and family.

<3, Meg