Three Minus One: Stories of Parents' Love and Loss Read Online Free PDF Page A

front of her as she walks in and chats with the little children gathering around us. In the first few years it only seemed to be
awkward
, but now it seems to be something else. Is it disdain? Disrespect? Misunderstanding? In her mind, should I be different? Do I come across as a bitch? I’m sure I will never know exactly. She doesn’t look me in the eye as I muster a pathetic “hi” in their direction with what must certainly be a blank look on my face.
Don’t look at the girl
, I tell myself in that frozen moment.
Look at the mom. Be friendly. Smile. Act NORMAL. Breathe.
    I doubt she knows what her presence and the presence of her daughter do to my inner being as the day goes on. How it rattles my core. My eyes try to dodge that child when the cake is being cut, but then I seek her out with sick, painful curiosity during present opening. How tall would he be? At least her height. The mom and her husband are not as tall as my husband and me, and my subsequent children are tall for their age. He would be, at least, her height. Would he be her friend? Would he be laughing? Would he be running with her? Would he be blond?
    He would be—though maybe brown-eyed to her blue. He
would
be joy and laughter. He would unite us in a common motherhood where we are now driven apart by drastically different experiences. We would have a bond. In reality I don’t often care about that bond, but I am keenly aware of its absence when I’m in the presence of that child and her mother. I can’t touch the child. Hug her. Say hi to her. Acknowledge her much. It hurts. It rips at my heart in ways that make it hard to speak. Those two friends don’t know that. They don’t know what that child does to me…and let’s not forget the effect of her mother, who has, for nearly five years, gone on to enjoy what I have lost. No, not lost. He is not lost. My little boy did not wander off. He died.
    The second encounter happened the following Wednesday. It was a beautiful spring evening. My husband made it home early, so we rushed our two little girls out of the house in the double stroller towander over and watch the end of a baseball game at the nearby high school. An hour later, we happily make our way back down our street with a grinning infant in the stroller and our “big girl” walking on her own. It is one of those rare times when our family life seems perfect, and it is a perfect night for a walk—that is, until I see the neighbor and her child.
    Nearly five years ago, my unfortunate new neighbor was out for a stroll when she spotted me outside my house. She eagerly came up our driveway to introduce herself and her brand-new baby. It was the first afternoon that I left my house alone after Isaiah died. I had just returned from approving the final drawings for his headstone. I was shattered. I was a wreck, and there was Jill with her brand-new baby.
    “Do you have kids?” she asked.
    “I was just pregnant, but my baby died.”
    How’s that for a conversation killer? It was the first time I was ever asked that awful question. I hadn’t practiced my responses. I didn’t have the arsenal of statements I now choose from when asked. She couldn’t possibly know how to respond, so she rushed off with an awkward good-bye, mumbling something about her contented, grinning child seeming hungry.
    Since then, I’ve chatted with Jill at another neighbor’s jewelry party and tried to explain my story of Isaiah to some extent, until she used the word “miscarriage” in her misunderstanding of what I was saying. Sadly, I don’t think it is possible to break into her mental construct of what my dead child meant to me when she ran into me that first sunny summer day. Like most people, she has no reference for the word “stillbirth.”
    On this sunny Wednesday evening, Jill and her children are out playing. I don’t see them often and the times I have, I’ve tried not to look at that girl. Of course, I fail in my attempt to avert my gaze. I