I know loss is different for everyone. For me, loss has become the expected, the normal. I fear miscarriage but at the same time expect it because it's been my way of life for several years now. I lost another one, as I wrote about in the last week or two, and I bounce back quickly. It hurt--a lot--but I'm okay. I even played with my nephew's baby and toddler over the last couple of days, chatted with my pregnant friend, heard of the announcement of my newborn nephew, and I'm okay. I'm not in the kind of pain I was in under similar circumstances after Alli died. Loss has become part of my new normal. Most people that are pregnant say they're expecting, but I can only say when I'm pregnant that I expect a miscarriage. Because I've been right for years.
But the mommy of those same babies came here to escape/cope with the anniversary of one of her miscarriages. I couldn't tell you the exact dates of my miscarriages because after 15, I've almost lost count. If every day I had a miscarriage was destroyed, there wouldn't be a lot of months left without pain. But to her, that date is significant, like the date of Alli's loss to me. Loss is different and affects us all differently.
Just because we're in a fetal position over every anniversary or scarcely take note of them, we can't expect the same of everyone or even anyone else. All we can do is reach out in empathy to others who have lost and treat them with love and understanding. We need to understand everyone is in a different place on this pathway called life. If someone doesn't react to miscarriages or is incapacitated by one, we can't judge them by our own experience and emotions because they're going to view these losses and react to them differently. All we can do is love and offer an ear or a shoulder or whatever they need.
