sylvia

I lost little babe Sylvia at 18 weeks pregnant. This made me question everything. Why I wanted kids, why I was married, what happened in my childhood. It still unravels wound up knots of who I am or was or want to be. Sylvia was a gift. Sylvia as an idea or fetus or experience. Sylvia’s racing heartbeat and Sylvia when the room went to bright lights and I came to with a doctor’s hand on my arm. Sylvia whose cells are still in me. Sylvia who bulged my belly into a crescent moon. Sylvia this little nugget that pops up in my dreams or Sylvia when I think about how much I’ve found myself these last six years. Here is how Sylvia impacted me just a few months after the loss. I don’t feel as hardened but I feel that new me.

It sloughs offs and you wad it up and bury it. The raw, fresh skin is sensitive to touch and light. It’s best to stay indoors. Get lots of sleep. Drink lots of water. Avoid alcohol. Buy some lavender. The way fire is cleansing. How living is aging. We change all at once and then continue little by little.

What grows back is still you. It’s just new you. Different you. Absorbed all of that person or experience, or whatever you’ve lost, and it forced you into transformation you. And it just does that. And you just wake up and you’ve felt everything. And you can go back, but only sometimes. Or you try to move forward and implode.

Shed again and transform if you have to, if you start to. It will make you stronger though some of the walls might just be hardened.