To Ashley

Last night, you experienced the greatest loss any woman ever knows, the loss of your unborn child. And it was your child. Not a fetus, not a "collection of cells or tissue," but your child.

Well meaning people are going to try to minimize your loss in a futile attempt to make you feel better, but it won't make you feel better. I know. Your mother and I each lost a child, as well.

For me it was my second, but for your mother it was her first, like yours, and that is the cruelest loss of all, the loss of the firstborn.

I am writing this because, one day, I hope you will be able to read it and know that you do not grieve alone and that in the world there is one person, at least, who understands.

For me, the hardest parts were that no no one would recognize my loss AS a loss. It was not a "blessing in disguise," or"not meant to be" and if it was God's will, I could only wonder why my loving Father would give me a gift like that and then take it away, before I ever got to enjoy it.

There is a reason for everything that happens, and God is a loving Father, but I still have no answer to that particular why, I expect I never will. I would like to think that it might have been, in part, because He knew that in 25 years or so, the person I loved best and was closest to would also suffer a catastrophic loss, and was going to need someone who understood the need to grieve.

I know that nothing you did caused this, and you need to know that, too. Really KNOW it. This is not your fault, nothing could have changed it, no matter what you did or failed to do you could not have changed the outcome.

Sometimes, things don't develop as they ought to, when something is so catastrophically wrong that the fetus can never become a viable, living child, we are designed to stop the process. Because God loves us and little babies, and spares us what we would suffer if we had to see those hurts made manifest in our child.

And though you may not believe me now, THAT hurt would be a thousand times crueler than the one you're suffering right now.

But having said that, now let me say this. You lost a baby. A person. Someone more precious to you than life, itself. And you have a right to grieve. The hardest part is having no grave to visit, no place to lay flowers, no stone that says that, even if for only a few weeks, your baby lived. And was loved. And strongly desired and desperately awaited.

Now, you are some one's mother, and no one can ever take that from you, my love. No one. So grieve as much as you must, know that empty arms are not empty forever, that broken hearts do mend, even if a little crookedly.

If you cannot have a grave to visit, plant a tree or a rosebush, and on this anniversary visit that place, and cry and leave a flower, and remember your child. And someday, even be a little glad that, even if for only a little time, you were everything to that little person.

You were food and shelter and a heartbeat that comforted. You were Mom, who was there at the beginning and that cradled that little life until it went back to God, and was cuddled by His Mother until you could come, and take it in your own arms.

I love you, Ashley. You ARE the kindness. Be brave, there is a child in your future that's going to need you. I promise. And you must be there for that.