Anniversary Days: When Your Arms Ache for the Baby That Died
It is August, and in the rhythm of my year, I begin to feel a shift into a tender, watery, achey season; one that draws me back to the vast love and heartbreaking loss of my infant son.
If you have walked through miscarriage, stillbirth, TFMR or infant or toddler loss, you might know this feeling too.
As the tide of the anniversary of your baby's birth or death comes in, your body just knows: the tug of sadness, or feeling heavy, more irritable, more tired. You might start working too much, or wanting to ditch, or needing more time alone.
It can be a time out of time, slower and dreamier, heavier, and somewhat confusing.
In a culture that moves so quickly, where we are measured by how much we get done, and appearing to be “fine”, it is hard to trust the wisdom of a return to this tender place, this slower pace.
I often think of a loss anniversary as a pilgrimage we make, to this deep part of ourselves that has lived through immense loss and immense love.
Humans have walked pilgrimages for centuries, returning again and again to places made sacred by love or loss; re-living mythic stories that mean something important to them. People find these walks to be a sacred and important time of reflection, honoring something bigger, something ancient. They expected to be changed by the journey.
In these anniversary grief walks, we feel not just the grief of the original story, of that first year that we walked with the death of this child, but all that has happened since, all we have taken in, the weight of the world we carry on our shoulders. All this comes to the surface of the heart.
There will always be friends and family members who don’t understand, why it is still so hard and heavy so many years later. Here’s my answer: It takes a long time to truly metabolize such a searing experience. Such a shattered heart that was brimming with love needs decades to heal, to understand, to work with all of these places and feelings. In this time, when it is all so close, you have the chance to notice the places within that are still afraid, the places that haven’t gotten to weep enough, the places that want to remember and adore this baby.
The tears that come with this remembering wash the heart and move the pieces that have become stuck.
I don’t want to romanticize this time…remembering the pain more clearly IS hard. It is bitter and so vastly sad. Yet it also seasons our lives with something so important. The pain of missing this baby can also be a kind of nourishment, and is not separate from the love we have for this child. It is very much woven together with it.
This pain points us to what truly matters: what we are wiling to experience for love. And that love, no matter how many hours or days or months it was here in the form of your child, rings out with a note we can sing along with the rest of our lives. Sometimes the songs are sad, aching, sometimes very sweet. Whatever the tone, the love/pain has a dark beauty that the soul needs to know and doesn’t want to forget.
As the anniversary approaches for you this year, I offer a blessing.
May you know you are not alone. May you feel permission to move to a deeper rhythm in this time. May you no longer shame yourself for being slower, quieter, or less available in life. May you not feel the need to apologize for needing rest, or for saying no to invitations that would overwhelm your heart. May you make room for the sweetness and bitterness of remembering, for the somber sorrow that comes with wishing you could have seen them grow up, and honoring how your soul has been deepened by all of it.
If you’re wondering if you should be grieving at this point in your journey, I want you to know that there is no timeline for grief, and no end-date for sorrow. As long as you love your little one, you will grieve them. As you allow your grief to flow, you may find yourself standing in the deep waters of love as well. Love for your child, love for your life now.
Also, you don’t have to do this alone. Humans are made to support each other through loss, though we may have gotten a little rusty with it in current times, it is also one of our most beautiful offerings. Connection through loss.
As I enter this time of my yearly pilgrimage into love and sorrow and remembering, even 18 years later, it takes some effort to surrender to wherever it takes me; to allow it. I also sense it’s potency.
In this slower, depthful place I really take in the gentle breeze, the smell of the grasses. This time of sorrow adds dimension to my therapy sessions, widens my compassion, clarifies my understanding of the losses and hearts of my clients. It brings me a sense of wonder and awe for what I have walked through and survived. I am grateful for the journey of the return, for the sweetness of connecting with my son in a closer way, and connecting with my big, broken-hearted self too.
As these anniversary days approach, there are a few things I hope you'll consider.
Leave room for the unknown. If you can, try not to schedule every hour. You often don't know what an anniversary will ask of us until you are in it. Leave some space in your calendar, if possible, for whatever your heart and body need that day, week or month.
Meet yourself with compassion. If you notice shame arriving alongside sadness, see if you can greet yourself with tenderness. What would it be like to say to your grief, "I am here for you. You are welcome here.”
Let someone walk beside you. Is there at least one person who can simply be with you without trying to make it better? Someone who remembers your baby, or who is willing to listen? It is safety-making to share some of the weight of this time with a friend, a group, a therapist, who can walk with you through it.
Find holdfasts to help you be with this sorrow, to be with your heart. A soothing botanical spray, a calming cup of tea, a bracelet or necklace you wear and touch that signifies the connection to your child, a special walk you take, or looking at the stars at night, all of these kinds of things accompany our hearts and help to strengthen us as we go.
There is no perfect way to walk these anniversary days. I hope for you to be able to honor the love and sorrow that comes forward as essential and important for your being. I wish for you to leave room for the clunkiness of it, the stumbles, and I hope that soft spaces emerge to land in. I wish that you may stop measuring whether your grief is "normal," and instead ask whether you are listening to it with kindness.
Jessica Malmberg is an LMFT in Santa Rosa, CA, supporting parents through pregnancy loss, infant loss, and the years beyond.
Read more about therapy for Pregnancy and Infant Loss here
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