I Miss Her

the girl who didn't know me

I’ve always believed in eras — the distinct chapters of our lives marked by haircuts, playlists, and coffee orders. I can trace my life through them: the skinny jeans and camisole-under-v-neck era, the purple highlights and side bangs era, the iced americano era — “No, I just love the taste of coffee.” I remember the Ugg boots stained with salt, the PINK yoga pants folded at the waist, the Old Navy cardigan layered over last year’s t-shirt.

These days, I’m really into the Nuuly rented cashmere sweater with pilling leggings and whatever shoes are by the door. I add sugar to my coffee because it tastes good. I find my way to a few Pilates classes each week. DoorDash is a frequently-used-app, and my chiropractor and I have inside jokes.

Each phase of my life had its own texture, its own logic. I think of them like old friends.

My eras are defined by many things, but lately, I’ve been mourning my pre-grief self — the one who woke up early to go to the gym, helped friends move, sang songs in the car, stayed up late watching football with her husband, went to the bar with her sisters. I miss the naivety, the not-knowing what death felt like.

What people don’t understand when your child dies moments after they are born is that you feel death. You hold death.

When your placenta is ripped out, your body still thinks there’s a baby to feed. Your boobs are signaled to make milk. It’s biology. It’s fact. Your breasts literally experience death as they search for life. Your brain searches for the oxytocin it was supposed to feel during bonding and skin-to-skin. You physiologically feel death, even though you’re alive.

I have to believe this does something to your brain.

Every movie, every book, every song portrays babies as screaming, gasping for air, their eyes opening and scanning the room, their wails calmed by their parents’ voices. Every TLC Baby Story episode I watched as a girl montaged the cries, the tiny fingers reaching toward the sky as they were pulled from their first home; the womb.

Instead, I heard the sound of a heartbeat slow down. I looked at my child, waiting for him to wake up — like a sleeping doll — but he never did.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s what my body did to my pre-death self. Is she just sleeping? Will she ever wake up? Will she fit into the same jeans, listen to the same music, crave the same foods, dance under the same lights?

Where is she? Is she really gone?

I miss her.

I fear my friends and family miss her too. When they say “remember when,” I smile, but inside I’m screaming — because of course I remember. But it doesn’t feel like my memory. It feels like my best friend died. Like I lived those memories with her, and she’s not here to re-live them anymore. That wasn’t me.

Who am I now?

Part of my grief is witnessing myself die alongside my son — wondering where I went, if I’m with him somehow.

Did I light up a room when I walked in? Because now I feel like I dampen it. People check my eyes to see if they’re wet. Did I make people laugh? Because now I make them cry. Did I make new friends easily? Because now I isolate myself. Was I easygoing? Because these days, I can feel myself freeze at the smallest challenge.

I look at old pictures and ache for the girl I was. I wish I could tell her what lay ahead — not to warn her, but so she’d savor the late nights, the size-27 jeans, the fearlessness.

I wonder what she’d be doing today, the same way I wonder what my son would be doing. Would she have cut her hair short — the first-time-mom chop? Bought new bras? Preferred the Baby Björn over the Artipoppe? Would she know the Bluey song by heart? Would she take Teddy to a restaurant at 8 p.m., integrating him into her life instead of building a new one?

Would my friends come over on days I needed help — and would I let them? Would my sisters see me first as their nephew’s mom, or as their sister?

Some days, I can’t stop wondering where she is — what she’d be doing, what she was like before she died. Other days, I grieve her outright: what it was like to be married without shared trauma, to have a guest room instead of an empty nursery, to crave career growth instead of survival.

And then I feel guilty. Yearning for a life before my son — am I wishing he never existed? Do I want a do-over? Because even though the answer is no, the wishing for my old life is still there. I wish the memories were sweeter, instead of cloaked in naivety. I wish my resilience came from middle-school bullies instead of death.

I have nothing to say to wrap this up with a beautiful bow. I don’t know how to tell you that grief is beautiful, or that I’m grateful for the experience, or that “deep grief is just deep love.”

Are all of those things true? Absolutely. I would have carried my son in every single lifetime to have seen his precious face, to sniff his head, to wrap him in his blanket. I would do it all again to grieve him.

But some days, I don’t recognize the girl in the mirror — because not only is she not who she used to be, she’s not who she thought she’d be.

I know that I’m proud of my reflection. I’m proud of what I’m able to do and carry, physically, metaphorically, emotionally.

But damn, I miss her. And I wonder where she is.

But I know, if I hadn’t lost her, I wouldn’t have met me.

Xoxo,
Teddy’s Mom