Remembering ... Miscarriage ...

This Curtis Wiklund Sketch (please click on the link; it's a powerful sketch) touched a chord in me that's been buried deeply for a long time. 

It's not the loss of my sons that's been buried because that's frequently on my mind - they are the angels on my shoulders, with me all the time - no, it's the actions/reactions of their father that I've tried to keep way down in there somewhere out of sight out of mind.

Unlike the couple in the sketch my husband and I did not grieve as a couple.

No I don't particularly want to talk about it.

But I can at least make the effort to remember.

He it was who, knowing I was supposed to be on bed rest, railed at me for not carrying the 2x4s upstairs where we were working on creating a room for this our third child. He it was who mocked me with scorn in his voice for not getting that sheetrock upstairs for the child I was carrying. He it was who told me that if I wanted a place for this child I'd better get off my fat ass (I weighed in at barely 100 pounds at the time) and get that stuff up there where it was supposed to be.

And so I did.

We didn't need that room for our son after all.

Standing over the bloody bed of the death of his son, this father shouted derisively at the mother of said son, 'Killing your baby! You're killing your own baby - some mother you are!' 

Laughing, he started down the stairs and I listened to his footsteps pause when from out of me came a sound I never knew was in me. I've learned since the sound of keening, but at the time it took me by surprise. And it stopped that father in his tracks for only a moment. He stopped laughing but continued on down the stairs while his oh-so-very-tiny son's body flowed from me in a rush of blood.

The act he must have put on for the hospital staff had to have been admirable; they were shocked and appalled when I, still under the effects of anesthesia, had a sort of panic attack at the sight of him approaching my recovery bed. I was told, 'He needs your support and sympathy right now. Try to understand what he's going through.'

They never did get the body of that son. I myself buried him before I turned the rest of it over to them for analysis.

Whether or not that father ever thinks of his sons I have no idea. I have to kind of doubt they cross his mind very often.

Me, I'm never really without them.

As I say, they are the 'angels' that ride my shoulders.