My baby died

In the first fragile weeks, I would repeat to myself: "My baby died." It was literally my brain trying to pound in the reality and enormity of it all. When I would walk around the grocery store and look at strangers and think, “Did you know my baby died?”

They are no longer a recurring theme in my thoughts throughout the day, but when those same repetitive words arise in my mind’s eye: “My baby died. My baby died. My baby died.” I know it’s time to disengage from the world for a moment and saturate myself in the awareness that it did happen. The shock from trauma does not drop away in an instant—it is a slow, delicate unwrapping of reality.  One where I have to accept that my baby died.