Alli would have been 15 next month. She could have been studying to get her learner's permit. She could have been thinking of a crush, hoping for a date. She would have been a fully-formed human looking forward to adulthood. Instead, she's our angel, the first of many. All of the others didn't even make it to birth. She's still fully formed; we just can't see her. We lost her at just shy of four months. For almost 15 years, we have been members of the Empty Arms Club. It's a disconcertingly large club. It's always nice to be understood by fellow members, but I don't wish it on anyone. The dues are too high. I'm thankful to understand how to show empathy and understanding. I know that's one good thing that has come out of the worst time of my life. I just wish I could say that fifteen years have brought true healing.
I truly don't know what healing looks like. I took a course on trauma writing, so I know writing can help. I've read about the five stages of grief, but I've also heard there is no reliable research to back them up. I can pass through most days without feeling the agony of loss, but I'm not sure if this is what's called healing. This is what fifteen years have granted me. When I really face the pain, it almost feels like no time has passed, and I'm in agony again. After watching me break down, my psychiatric healthcare nurse friend recently pointed out I could still use therapy for real healing. She also said the combination of a childhood of abuse, the loss of 18+ babies including Alli, dealing with the fallout of losing Alli--including DCSF attempting to frame us for negligent homicide--and all the other things I've suffered have left me with depression and PTSD. Yeah, pretty sure I'm just surviving instead of actually healing. But therapy costs money. It's never fit in the budget. Maybe one day. But I've always been the most fully functional of all of us. Everyone else's therapy always felt like a higher priority.
I did some research early on to find out what real healing is supposed to look like. I read books of child loss for the faithful, but none of them quite encompassed the kind of loss wherein a thought of the child also drummed up months of trauma at the hands of the state nor years of futile striving for a rainbow baby that would never come. I've heard you can tell you've healed when you can reflect on the joys and forget the pain when you look at the person's picture. I'm nowhere near that. Alli's pictures are still hard for me to look at and can even be a trigger. I usually do a pretty good job of not thinking of the gaping, bleeding hole in my chest. However, slight references to child loss or even babies have set me off more than usual recently. Maybe it is because the anniversary is coming up. The anniversaries and birthdays are always the worst days of the year. Maybe it's lack of sleep or an excess of stress. Little things also remind me of my late dad, who died a year ago this month, and my brother, who died the month before my baby did. But worst of all is when something reminds me of my baby.
