“I held you every second of your life.” – Stephanie Paige Cole

 

My Interpretation: Not all motherhood gets a beginning. But it still deserves a reckoning. Still deserves a name. Still deserves love. It is the quiet kind of grief; the kind that does not get to scream but still swallows everything. It is not a moment the world witnessed – but you did; I did. & you deserve to be seen for it.

---

Series 2 – Post 3: Letters From The Inside

You Were Brave In Silence

---

Hey love,

 

I saw you.

Even when no one else did.

 

I saw the way you curled your body inward-

trying to hold onto something

you already knew you were losing.

 

I saw how you did not let yourself fall apart,

because there was no one around

who would catch you if you did.

---

You were brave.

 

Not in the Instagram-quotes kind of way.

Not in the “you’re so strong” way

people say when they do not want to sit in your pain.

 

You were brave because you faced it alone.

You carried life.

Then you carried loss.

& then, somehow,

you carried on.

---

I remember the way your hands shook

when you looked at the toilet paper.

 

The way you hated yourself for examining it-

as if the color,

the texture,

the size of the clot

could offer you an answer.

 

I remember the guilt you felt for crying.

& the guilt you felt for not crying enough.

---

I remember how you tried to Google your way out of it.

How you scrolled forums at 2am,

looking for hope in strangers’ comments,

clinging to stories that sounded like yours,

trying to find one that had a better ending.

 

& when it became clear there would not be one-

you did not scream.

You did not fall apart.

 

You made dinner.

You mothered your living child.

You brushed your teeth

& buried the ache.

---

That is the kind of bravery

no one writes poems about.

But they should.

---

You were not just carrying grief.

You were carrying questions with no answers.

Guilt that was not yours.

& silence that felt like punishment.

 

You wondered if it was stress.

If it was the coffee.

If it was the argument.

If it was your body betraying you-

again.

---

But babe, this was not your fault.

Not even a little.

 

You did not cause this.

You did not deserve this.

 

& even if no one else mourned it the way you did-

that does not make your mourning any less real.

---

You were a mother,

even in those quiet weeks.

 

You were a home.

You were enough.

You still are.

 

You did not need to bleed in front of witnesses to be believed.

You do not need permission to grieve.

 

You get to carry this

however, you need to.

 

There is no “right way”

to let go of something

you never got to hold.

---

You were supposed to be resting.

But instead, you were doing emotional triage

for people who did not show up for you.

 

Cooking meals.

Calming a child.

Tiptoeing around a man’s moods.

 

You were grieving,

& they still expected you to be okay.

To manage your body,

your pain,

your bleeding,

your sadness-

& still smile on command.

 

That was not fair.

---

They questioned you.

“Are you sure it is a miscarriage?”

“Maybe it is just a weird period.”

“Let’s wait & see.”

 

As if you did not know your own body.

As if the blood was not different.

As if the silence in your womb was not screaming.

---

Women know.

We always know.

 

& the fact that you had to second-guess your own instincts

just to be taken seriously?

 

That. Was. Not. Fair.

 

It was never fair.

It will never be fair.

& I will never stop being angry about that for you.

---

I am proud of you.

 

For how you kept going,

even when it felt like your body had betrayed you.

 

For how you never stopped loving

what could have been.

 

You were brave in silence.

 

But I hear you now.

 

& I will never let your pain be minimized again.

I will not let you grieve alone again.

With fire & softness,

–Me

xoxo ♡