To My Sister Who Lost Her Baby

My Sister, there are no words, yet so much runs through our minds.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry you know this kind of pain. I am so sorry you have been forcefully shoved into a world of deep sorrow and all-encompassing grief.

I'm so sorry we don't know the right things to say to you. We say weird, insane, ridiculous things because we can't bear the pain ourselves, so we wound you deeper.

We say things like "Hasn't enough time passed? Shouldn't you be over it by now?" or "Aw, well, you can have another baby. Your time will come." Maybe, when we are being extra awful, we ask how it happened, so we can assuage our fears and ensure that never happens to us.

We have no idea what to say Instead of just sitting with you, holding your hand, recounting memories of your lost love, we tell you that everything will be ok. We say this because we can't bear the weight of this horror. We say it, hoping it will be true, or maybe, it's because we so deeply, painfully and selfishly don't want to enter in this moment with you.

Our superstitions rise high so we believe if we distance ourselves from "the story" it will never happen to us or our loved ones.

We might even get high and mighty and gossip, thinking we are merely asking other people for prayer for you. We might tell them what happened and share the story and seek comfort for ourselves while we leave you alone in the deep darkness.

My sister, we stop this now. From this point forward, we will be with you. We will ache with you. We will cry those tears of confusion and anguish with you. We will plead with our God and our Higher Power and ask why and why and why.

We will sit with you and stare off in the distance with so many thoughts in our mind. We will just sit and be with you in that horrific emotion. We will do this with you and when we are not with you. We will not just love while we are with you. When we are apart from you, we will uphold our promise to cherish, love, desire, protect and keep your loved baby in our mind and any way we possibly can hold onto them.

My sister, you will never be alone again. You will never hear us check in on you just to mark it off our calendars. You will feel all of us together with you. We will carry this massive, overwhelming and horrendous burden on our backs and shoulders with you. Our posture stands weaker with you, yet we will give you our strength.

You should be with your baby. There is no way around that. No matter how your baby was taken from you, nothing will ever fix that and we can't bear that.

My sister, I'm so sorry we have cut you again and again with our words. This ends now. You have our word. You will only know our deep ache. We will be honest and say we have no idea what to say. We will not pity you and tell you "You're so strong" because you should not have to be strong right now. You owe nothing to anyone. No one needs you to be strong, however, we understand that you are doing whatever you can to even survive. We will not tell you how to grieve. We will reaffirm that promise by asking you how can we grieve with you.

My sister, this load is so heavy and it feels like your baby is the only one who could lighten it. Sweet sister, you're not alone and will not be alone ever again.

I'm so sorry. I don't want this for you. I'm so sorry.