Word Weld

“How many are you, then,” said I,
“If they two are in heaven?”
Quick was the little Maid’s reply,
“O Master! we are seven.”

– Wordsworth

This is not a subject I enjoy writing about. It is difficult for me, but not in the sense of being embarrassing to share, or even being necessarily painful. The lines above are from the poem We are Seven, and I highly recommend it, though it is quite sad in some ways. I am writing this to help people who have never experienced a lost child, and specifically a miscarriage. Practically speaking, losing a child before birth and losing a born child are two entirely separate experiences, and I do not know what it feels like losing a born child, thankfully. It seems to me that there is a sense of loss with a born child’s death that cannot be fully mitigated, or gotten used to, or even accepted. I know little more than this, and what I can imagine based on what I have heard.

Miscarriage is its own kind of pain, an animal of the same genus but a distinct species, and I will try to describe as best as I can what I can about it. Why would I want to do this? Because I was once on the outside. I once was an ordinary person going about my life. Every so often, in the course of my interactions with other people, I would hear about this dreaded, mysterious thing called a “miscarriage.” It was an awkward idea. I would meet someone and I knew that they had lost a child, but they had lost the child before it was even born, so they didn’t know it at all. Yet, they still behaved as if someone had been ripped out of their hearts as well as their lives. How could this be? They had never even seen this person. And so the awkwardness continued as I got older. I went for years without ever hearing about miscarriage, and then out of the blue someone I knew very well told me about the two children his family had lost during pregnancy. Again I felt awkward. How could I not know this about this person? What would I say? How do they feel about it? There was a terrible sense of sadness about them, but not overwhelming, as one would expect from someone who lost a grown child. Always I tried to understand, but couldn’t.

And then it happened to me.

Our fourth child wasn’t very far along when he miscarried. We didn’t really know if the child was a boy or girl. I just started calling him a “he” and it stuck. It was a time of total disorientation. It was like floating in space, drifting without any kind of tether or landmark. I often found myself trying to comfort my wife but having nothing to say. She expressed to me what she felt easily enough. She would cry often, and talk of how wronged she felt, how unfair it was. Of course, she speculated from time to time on ways it could have been her fault. I told her that it wasn’t her fault, and that God had a reason for what happened, and every comfortless truth besides.

For a time after the doctor gave us the news, we went about our affairs feeling like there was a cloud hanging over us. There was a grief lingering on the edge of every moment, yet I wasn’t sure if it was real, or if I should be grieving for something I never had. I cried too, sometimes while I was at work. But it was still distant. I still wasn’t sure if what was happening was real or what I should feel. Then there was the fateful night. I will not go into detail, partly because it is off-putting to read, and partly because it is painful to describe. The night that our lost child came everything became 100% real and I realized the truth about miscarriage. While it is different from losing a grown child, miscarriage is fundamentally no less painful. In the days following that nexus of grief, I felt free at last to grieve–like I should grieve. I realized fully that my very little boy was as real as any of us. He was not just an idea, not just a little swelling of my wife’s tummy for a few months. It wasn’t like ordering something on the internet and never receiving it. It was more like someone mailing you a precious, priceless heirloom and the package caught fire and they delivered you the ashes.

It was after that night that I knew we needed to give him a name. We needed to think and behave in our lives as if he existed–because he did, and because he does. We named him Ghaen Immanuel Heyden. Ghaen was the name of a hero from one of my books, whose name means “small.” We chose Immanuel because it means “God with us,” because Ghaen is with God, and because God was with us during the darkness of the grief we felt. Ghaen still lives, with his Real Father. But his lesser father will never forget the overwhelming sense of robbery. I pondered having conceived a child I would never see, and never know. Over time, the sharpness of the pain diminished, and became a dull throb, often overlooked, and only coming into focus at odd times. I bought my wife a pendant with the names and birthstones of all our children, and sometimes when I see it I recall Ghaen with a wave of longing, only to soon after be distracted. We talk of him sometimes, but the pain is less dull for Kristina, and I dislike causing her additional sadness. But far more dangerous is forgetting Ghaen, or acting as if he never was. There is a memorial out in our yard for him, and we will be visiting it this month, for February is the month he would have been born, had God seen fit to leave him among us. February is the month our youngest daughter was born, and so it is a happy time, but there will always linger within it the memory of the person taken from us before his natural time. I look forward to meeting him one day, in the Beyond.

Why am I opening up on this subject? This is only my second blog post, and it is neither funny nor pleasant to write or to read. I am writing this partly as a memorial to my lost son, but mostly to those who have never lost a child. As someone who has lost a child, let me try to help you. I was in your shoes once, too. Don’t ignore or shy away from the mention of our loss, because it is not just painful but precious. Indeed, even the pain itself is a comfort, for it reminds us. At least for us, the worst thing to come of his fate would be that we should forget him. I understand we can’t talk very much about it, since we never knew him, but even just the mention of his name, or the traditions we have built around his memorial keep his memory alive within us, and that is what we must always do. That is paramount, I think, with miscarriage: the parents must never let themselves forget, never ignore for the comfort of others the mention of the name of the Lost One.

As a final note, there are times, like February for my wife and I, when the memory of Ghaen and the pain of his loss is most keen. Some of our friends are pregnant right now, and I just want to say that we are very happy for all of them. We wish them the best of health, safety, and joy for the precious lives they are going to welcome. But forgive us during this time of reflection, because you are (unintentionally and inevitably) grim reminders of the pain we experienced. If we are quiet and wistful in our congratulations, please know it is not indifference or petty jealousy. Nor do we mean to put a damper on your excitement. We are just reminded that as a family, we who are five should have been six.

I would never wish miscarriage on anyone, but I think it is almost impossible for someone to relate if it has never happened to them. I wish I was still in your position, and that we were six–that I still didn’t understand what this is like. The purpose of this article was to try to help those fortunate people who have all the children they were given understand part of what the rest of us feel, and what we expect. We don’t want constant sympathy, but please don’t act like our Lost One never existed. The pain of his reminder is more precious than any comfort we could have, and the thought of forgetting or ignoring his short life is the greatest treason to us. We want to speak of our Lost One from time to time as if he were real, because he was, and because he is.

“But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!”
‘Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, “Nay, we are seven!”

– Wordsworth