Her birth was silent, and we wept. As the days passed, the quiet weeping turned to deep sobs and later passionate yells as tears poured down our faces.
Tim and I started this blog, Cries for the Silent, shortly after we lost Cara. Initially we intended to use this blog to advocate for stillbirth legislation and awareness. At times it has been that place for us. However, we also use it to remember, to cry and to validate the presence of our first daughter. Her picture is right there. How could she not be a part of our lives?
Now we have our second daughter Molly in our lives. We love her completely, wholly but in a way that is very different from Cara. Does that mean we love Cara less? Absolutely not. We love her differently, with longing, brokenness and pain, but with hope for restored life at the end of our journey.
Two painful experiences reverberate throughout the past 11 days. First, since I delivered Molly people think that NOW we are parents. I suspect if Cara had lived for even a minute her life would be validated by society, but since she was stillborn it was as if she was never here. However, we are and have been parents. We were parents when Cara was conceived. We were parents when I pushed her lifeless yet perfect body into this world. We were parents when that same precious little body was lowered into the ground. And each time we cried.
The second painful experience is the comments that now our happiness has been made complete because Molly is in our lives. Molly NEVER replaces Cara. Never, ever. Molly is wonderful and loved so, so deeply, but she does not take away the grief. We will ALWAYS miss Cara and years from now there will be tears to shed, because we will not send her to school or watch her walk down the aisle at her wedding or deliver our first grandchild. Parents do not 'get over' losing their child. The burden of the grief walk will lessen, but the grief will forever remain present.
With Molly we learn what we missed with Cara. I spend a lot of time smiling at my precious baby girl, kissing her cheeks, and nibbling her fingers. Once a day though I hold her close and weep for Cara. So we cry for our little one who came silently into this world. We cry for the other little ones who never had a voice in this world, for Aidan, for Hope, for Christian, for the many blogs we read of other parents battling through this journey. Their voices are forever heard in our lives.
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2 comments:
Congratulations on your second precious daughter.
May her guardian angel be looking down and smiling for ever more.
So true about guardian angels...my boys sure have one.
Congratulations for being a parent second time round.
Lisa
No, you can never replace your sweet little Cara. And yes, yes, you were a mama from the first moment that baby was conceived. Molly isn't a replacement, or a consolation prize... or a validation of you and Tim as parents. She is your second daughter, just as loved and wanted as your first.
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