On the anniversary of her death

I do not know when my daughter died. It was a year ago today, or it may have been tomorrow, or even perhaps yesterday. She was in my belly. I should know when, I suppose, but one of the first things you learn when your child dies--you have no control over anything, especially what you get to know. And despite how much you may want something, it is not up to you.

Things you may never know that you desperately feel like you should know: why she was taken away, why she died, when she died, when you could have saved her, how you will survive.

No matter how many nights you stay up asking these questions, you somehow manage to sleep again, and to forget that these questions mattered so very much in the beginning. I haven't learned much in a year, but realizing that control is an illusion is one. The other thing I do know is that on December 21, 2008, Winter Solstice a year ago, someone told me my daughter's heart had stopped beating. I have not quite yet taken a breath myself since then.

I have been doing well as I approach this anniversary. A year. A day, a week, a month, three months, six months, nine months, a year...I have moved through time. Glided through the days, tripped over the rocks of ordinary moments--some of those anniversaries have been overwhelmingly hard, and others not so much. My angst and desperation came out in the beginning of this month as I stressed about our amniocentesis and all the other things piling on top of itself to show me how sad and unpredictable life is. I have thought about a thousand things to do for her day, but we will probably do nothing at all in particular. It is just another day without her. She is still hopelessly gone. Another day of grief after what feels like an eternity of mourning. Though it feels like a big anniversary, I have not really been focusing on it too much. Christmas has trumped this anniversary in some ways, much like I imagined it would have trumped her birthday. In fact, Lucia was due on my birthday, and so I understand that strange liminal place between holidays and your day. People forget mostly. I also projected this strange quirky personality of mine on hers. I imagined her like me, and when she died I wondered what that meant about who I was. Was it too heavy of a burden for her to carry through birth? Being like me--full of existential angst and questions about why and what and how?

This post, though, is about her death. Her birth is different. I try in my mind to separate the two things. Lucy died. Lucy was born. It isn't the same thing. One was sad. One was the day I met her, which was also sad, but somehow beautiful too. Today, I had the impulse to reflect on this last year without my girl. I have tried to follow the ebb and flows of this time, and today was the first time I felt like reading back, or thinking at all about last Solstice. It was naptime for the girl, the dog and the man. I had an impulse to open a folder of my writing. I found this letter I wrote not long after her death. Somehow, of most I have written, this sort of captures her death at the time. I cannot remember if I sent it or not. I don't even know what to say about it except that there is part of all of this still in me, even though I am also so grossly different. Not better. Not healing. Just different.

:::

Letter to G.
January 2, 2009.
Two days before her due date. Twelve days since her birth. Ten days since her death.

Some days it is like the last nine months have been a strange dream, and I suddenly awoke not pregnant again. Other days, I spend the day pinching myself, sobbing, and repeating the words, "My daughter is dead." One day she was wiggling in my belly, and the next, limp. There are no whys, or hows. It just is. They have said we may never know why, though we are awaiting an autopsy. Lucia came out perfect, G.. I wish you could have seen her. I wish everyone could see her. Black hair, beautiful little face, blue eyes, and a perfect nose. I dreamed her once, and she was just as I imagined in my dream--the girl with purple eyes. The one that looked like me. Everything about her was perfect except she was not breathing, or crying, or going to stay with me ever again. Quite simply, my heart is broken.

I am here on the precipice of never loving another soul again. It just hurts too damn much to lose the love. It was too much to hold my dead child. Something in me died when I couldn't breathe life into her, when I realized my womb was her coffin. What if I disallow myself to feel again? Will that help?Somehow I think my heart will overcome my will, and I will simply love despite myself, but right now, my heart has no room for anyone who isn't already there proving their worth.


I am finally feeling physically whole. I am grateful for this small blessing. The birth itself was surrounded by a dark calm--no tearing, no bleeding, just my girl and me, and my husband whose tears nearly did me in. I grieve for my husband's loss as much as my own. My breasts thought she was alive, and I suffered the torture of making milk for the last week. Even my cancerous disfigured breast, from which Bea could never get milk, wept for her. It hurt, and I cried as my milk ran. How cruel life can be?

There is no measure of grief. We just grieve, eternally, those of us who have lost a child we never slept with, or fed. Those of us who lost a future we fell in love with. I loved Lucy not simply because she was part of our family but because she was part of a future I wanted. We have to reinvent this life now. How the fuck do we do that? How do I ever let this womb hold another child? But still, I am not drawn into the abyss, not yet. I've got a little girl who needs a mother who is whole. So I remain in my most Buddhist moments, wholly present, aware, engaged, and simply in the now. It is all I can do for my soul and my family. Sam is beyond himself too, but brave and beautiful. His father died in the beginning of December. Lucia's birth was supposed to be a sort of zen reminder of the cycle of life and death.  And now, we are left with just the death. And I am finding out who amongst my friends are the true cowards, afraid to talk to us, afraid to enter our world. I guess it wasn't surprising, but I expected more. I always expect more, I suppose, it is my most alienating quality. I surprisingly feel absolutely no guilt about expecting people to step up and be here, but I realize that means I will probably be alone in my grief. And alone long into the future.

Since Lucia died, I have been thinking endlessly about a story I once read called the Mustard Seed. It softens me, and takes me outside of myself. This grieving is such a narcissistic process. I am always thinking about what Lucia won't experience, what I won't experience. I am always thinking about me. Me. Me. Me. But this story has made me think a great deal about all of us, and helped to get me out of constantly thinking I am the only one in the world suffering. We have all suffered. How I have been so ignorant and shallow and small to not see how everyone aches for their own Lucia?



I am sorry I was selfish in my life. Maybe this is my prayer to the world, or my apology. I am sorry I was selfish. I will be selfish again. I already am selfish again to tell the world to fuck off while I grieve. To be angry that the universe demands my breath when my child is absolutely still. To demand that people say her name: Lucia Paz. Light and Peace. 


Thank you for being my confessor today. I have more sins, but no voice left.