After I lost my daughter, there was nothing. My body shut down for awhile, but even after I regained consciousness, my world was ashes. I really can't convey the totality of my despair; there aren't really any words. We could never have a baby of our own. All the purpose, all the things that once meant something, now meant nothing. Hope is an essential part of who we are;
we stop striving for that distant dream, and our spirit dies. The body sometimes sticks around, but it's just a shell.
One Sunday afternoon years after, I stepped out of our car and saw a man riding a dragon in the blue sky. As we gazed into the bright blue, my husband and I agreed that it was a very unusual cloud formation Watching that cloud, a quiet voice whispered in my head, telling me that everything would be all right.
Then my doctor mentioned that there were new treatments for pre eclampsia. We had one embryo left, just one. The fertility clinic told us that we would have to find a perinatologist before they would implant the embryo. We had to find a bank that would give us a loan. We had to find someone to administer the intramuscular injections. I had to overcome a fear of needles and learn to inject myself with blood thinners each night.
Hope is a phoenix. It often rises, the tiniest glimmer, crawling from the ashes
of many an immolated desire. Every step of the way, every potential obstacle, that small voice would call to me, coaxing me out
of the bleakness of my despair little by little. This is what you need
to do, this is where you need to be, this is who you were meant to be. Even when my son was born early, and I gazed at his tiny body, hooked up to machines and tubes, there was a flame in my heart, and an assuring presence within me. "And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."**
And so it was.
**Julian of Norwich said that.
Xoxoxox...wishing you well, and even better!
ReplyDeleteHope is a phoenix. It often rises, the tiniest glimmer, crawling from the ashes of many an immolated desire.
ReplyDeleteThis metaphor really works for me. Because you were burnt, shattered, no longer you. And yet, you rose up from those ashes.
I felt your pain, just a bit, through your thoughtful words.
Love your phrasing throughout... the body sticking around but as a shell, the ashes and the phoenix, and the quote is amazing.
ReplyDeleteThe reader is left cheering for this little boy and the parents who love him well.
I loved this. You definitely took the reader on a journey with you. I felt my emotions fall and rise and I felt left in an inspired place. :)
ReplyDeleteCapturing hope as a phoenix, is a wonderful expression of the prompt. Very touching, and revealing.
ReplyDeleteThe body sometimes sticks around, but it's just a shell.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite line because it so describes where I used to be. Hope is a remarkable thing, isn't it? Blessings to you and yours :)
I love the metaphor of the phoenix. And I love the quote at the end. And I love that you share this with us.
ReplyDeleteWhat beautiful words - my heart goes out to you for all the pain that you had to endure. And what an inspiration you are to keep hope in our hearts. Hugs to you.
ReplyDeleteWow...a powerful story, well executed. Those of us who have experienced troubles in childbearing often return to those moments again and again; nothing else we live through quite plumbs the depths of emotion.
ReplyDelete"that small voice would call to me, coaxing me out of the bleakness of my despair little by little." YES! That is exactly how hope works.
ReplyDelete"And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well" That IS hope. Your writing here helped me feel your despair then hope then the future.
ReplyDeleteI love "my world was ashes" and then the image of the phoenix rising from the ashes. I felt your despair, then your hope surge forward, your strength so evident through the whole piece.
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