Comments on JACK at RANDOM: Quiet

I found your blog via a link on Stirrup Queens...a...

2011-11-07T08:36:39.798-08:00

I found your blog via a link on Stirrup Queens...and am glad I did. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about a baby my partner and I lost through a failed infant adoption (four years ago).

I don't think it's exactly the same thing, but there do seem to be some commonalities. It's nice to feel connected.

I have to say, it's also refreshing to read emotional reflections, particular about loss from another male parent. Thanks for sharing.

Oh I miss Margot and wish I was seeing her life un...

2011-10-20T14:08:06.459-07:00

Oh I miss Margot and wish I was seeing her life unfold. I wish I could spend her first Christmas together and I think about this so often ...that she would be with us, but she isn't. And I wish she was. I must think of this since it's the next time we'll all be together. I would see her in pictures now, but would hold her and kiss her and play with her in a couple of months.

Love you Josh. And I'm so sorry.

Oh. That emptiness. That void and quiet where ther...

2011-10-19T06:28:48.328-07:00

Oh. That emptiness. That void and quiet where there might have been another.

I love your description of feeling it in your own happiness. I feel it in my own. Sometimes it seems to throw the remainder of my happiness into sharper relief and, at others, it's just a horrible, aching hole.

I wish that Margot were here to clap and throw and yell and be sung to. I think she would have had such a lovely life with you, Kari and Stella. I'm so very sorry that isn't here, making as much noise as she wanted to.

Amazing words - the silence is deafening. A misgui...

2011-10-19T04:42:59.601-07:00

Amazing words - the silence is deafening. A misguided friend commented, when we were expecting our subsequent child, that we would struggle with the noisy, sleepless nights due to the big age gap between Toby and our older two living children. I wanted to scream that after the nights of sleepless silence we had endured, he could be as noisy as he liked.

Shouldn't there be sleepless nights with a scr...

2011-10-18T23:52:45.144-07:00

Shouldn't there be sleepless nights with a screaming baby. Why is it that nights are still sleepless but because our children are dead not alive. The screaming keeping us up is the sounds of our souls. The silence is deafening. I love my family. I know you love your family. How can it feel so full of love and empty simultaneously? We play, we laugh, we walk...and all the while we are missing...constantly missing. I wish you could sing to Margot. Sometimes when I am singing to Kai, I imagine I am also singing to Camille. I imagine her little hand wrapped around my finger and that warm soft baby smell. It makes my heart ache...all the missing.
Margot, Where are you? Camille, Where are you? I wish I knew. I wish I had a hope or belief that she was somewhere other than just dead. For me, butterflies and flying creatures do not represent my child. If anything I may find her in the sky, the wind, lightning, rain. Energy doesn't go away, it just changes shape...maybe, maybe.
But those things do not equal my daughter and so I have to sit and wish with you that this was all very different. Light and love to you Josh.

Gorgeous and heartbreaking.

2011-10-18T15:07:45.181-07:00

Gorgeous and heartbreaking.

Thank-you for participating in this post. Your com...

2011-10-18T15:05:47.095-07:00

Thank-you for participating in this post. Your comments are always this sweet reminder of a mysterious oneness, this strange human to human connection that occurs between us babyloss grievers.

Peace to all of you, in the midst of the deafening quiet.

Josh

Oh, ours was all knowing then, all generous displa...

2011-10-18T13:04:40.534-07:00

Oh, ours was all knowing then, all generous displaying.
Such wisdom we had to show.
And now there is merely silence, silence, silence saying
All we did not know.

William Rose Benet, Starry Harness

...Beautifully written as always Josh. Thank You.

I see my little one too, she's with us often, ...

2011-10-18T12:39:16.200-07:00

I see my little one too, she's with us often, just out of sight, but there doing everything you'd expect a 2 year old to do, and then she's not.
I'm so sorry Margot is not safe in your arms being sung to, I'm so sorry. x

The silence can be horrible and welcoming at the s...

2011-10-18T10:41:58.193-07:00

The silence can be horrible and welcoming at the same time, I know its weird. I often see Jack doing things with us. I have written about that not to long ago in my own blog. They are always here with us in our heart and mind but yet not really here. Picturing them growing with us makes us happy yet also hurts. We now have a new set of complicated and conflicting emotions.

Wow. This 2 sentences: But our noise isn't e...

2011-10-18T07:53:01.934-07:00

Wow. This 2 sentences:

But our noise isn't enough to overcome the silence of her absence.

She is everywhere and no where to be found.

So poignant, so true and so heartbreaking. I also see Jacob's absence everywhere we go and in everything we do.

The silence speaks volumes. In a fervent pitch tha...

2011-10-18T07:35:38.371-07:00

The silence speaks volumes. In a fervent pitch that only some can hear. Praying for you all everyday.

And just when I said I don't cry much these da...

2011-10-18T07:09:47.832-07:00

And just when I said I don't cry much these days.
Is it possible to miss Margot as much as I miss Joseph? Yes it is, with such salient words.
I see and hear Joseph everywhere too, especially in the voices of his big brothers. xo

I'm so sorry. I know just how that feels. It...

2011-10-18T06:17:52.958-07:00

I'm so sorry. I know just how that feels. It's too quiet here, too. We have too much freedom to go where we want, whenever we want.

The silence is deafening, isn't it? Its so har...

2011-10-18T05:21:59.032-07:00

The silence is deafening, isn't it? Its so hard bc since we are lucky enough to have a little one already, we know exactly what they would be doing as each month passes. It hurts to picture that and then jolt back to reality and its only our imagination.

You've nailed it, Josh. So much is here, and t...

2011-10-18T04:22:17.224-07:00

You've nailed it, Josh. So much is here, and that only underscores what, and who, is missing even more. Some days the happy parts are the hardest because she's not here to share them.

So much love to you and Kari and Stella, and of course Margot. I wish she was squishing bananas with you all.
xo

Sending you hugs and prayers.

2011-10-18T03:15:51.789-07:00

Sending you hugs and prayers.

"She is everywhere and no where to be found.&...

2011-10-18T02:26:42.986-07:00

"She is everywhere and no where to be found."

Aint that the painful truth.

Love to you guys.

xo