I didn't know. Not at first. Then I didn't want to know. My period started the day after Thanksgiving and didn't stop until the day after Christmas. Nameless called after the new year from Louisiana to tell me that he had a dream about fish and wondered if I was pregnant.
Funny that he would call after a fish dream and not after he took off the condom during sex because it made him uncomfortable. Uncomfortable was bleeding for a month. Uncomfortable was acknowledging slowly that Someone was living inside of me and then Someone wasn't living and was coming out of me in very bloody chunks. Uncomfortable was resisting naming the body. Or the baby. Or the chunks. Or guessing its gender.
I never told any family and only two homegirls. It was mine. My business. Mine to tell or not. To cry or not. Maybe this sounds weird but for a long time I mostly felt sad that I never experienced that as a loss. It was a loss, but not one I ever lamented over. I was in my early twenties and was only kinda sorta dating this dude in the Navy. And by dating I mean we spent Friday nights at Denny's and then went to my place after and stayed there until he left to go back to the base or wherever early the next morning. Then it was time for him to head back home and he was gone. We were through. Except there was a piece of him that lived in me. Not for long. But I can't pretend it didn't happen. That he was there. That she didn't exist.
I saw a friend tonight at a poetry reading. We had a chance to sit and talk for a bit before the show began. A couple of weeks ago she posted about a recent miscarriage she had and her sadness about losing her baby. And we're writers so we write right through sadness. I thought about how reading her post had me be present to how quietly I went through a baby leaving my body. Whether or not the pregnancy was planned or wanted losing a child takes a toll on anybody. A least my body. At least my mind. I was so business as usual it was like I had the flu. Like it never happened. What's interesting here is that was how I handled many events in my life that were too much for me to process emotionally. I moved through some hard times like I was a robot. I faked it until I made it. What I didn't accept was that I didn't make it through any of those times. Honestly, when I look back on the miscarriage I feel sorry about the experience, the process. But not that it happened. I don't know. I'm not saying this right. Or maybe just...I'm not saying this in a way that makes me look good. Because we wanna look good, don't we? We wanna be sure to be sensitive and cry at the right moments, right? I never cried over it. Ever. I barely even think about it. I wasn't even aware that I was even having a miscarriage until I told a friend how long my period was going on. She told me that was the baby. This was years before my son was born. When Uraeus was very young he used to laugh this big, hearty child laugh seemingly out of nowhere. I asked him once what he was laughing at and he said that he had a big brother who used to play with him in his dreams. Kids, man. They be knowin'. I never asked him about his big brother again and he never brought him up.
You know, even though I wasn't ready to be a mother back then, I no longer accept that skating on by a miscarriage like it was nothing is ok. Or maybe it's coming up because after all this time I'm finally able to process it. I will not name the baby. But I will finally say out loud, or at least in print that she was here.
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