Dear Evalyn, Time itself tells us that it can heal us of our grief. That 'in time', we may not hurt as much. But I'm sitting here three years after I last held you in my arms and my tears still find a way to fall onto the letters as I type. Because three years…
Dear Evalyn, Loss is meant to make us see the fragility of life. It is meant to make us see how much life should be cherished. How much it should be lived. Loss is meant to make us open our own doors outwards into the world and explore the beauty it holds, for we now…
I was never prepared for the questions our four year old son asked us after Evalyn died. Why couldn't your tummy keep her alive, Mummy? Did she not love us enough to stay? Was she sad when she had to leave? He processed her death in the innocent way his mind knew how, and yet,…
Dear Iola, I always knew that parenting you would fill me with joy. I also knew that parenting you would be incredibly hard. Unlike your brother, you were born after loss. You were born into a world that exists after Evalyn. And as hard as I try, it is sometimes impossible to stop my own…
People have inquisitive minds. They see a bump or a baby and pressume that you are a glowing parent. That you are excited. That you are not grieving. "Is this your first?" This question used to bother me during pregnancy after loss. "Is this your first?" used to scare me. Because I refused to…
Dear Evalyn, Do you know what I've realised in the two years since I last held you in my arms? Two years feels like yesterday. We don't move on as grieving parents. We have to move forward as the world continues to turn - even if we are unsure of the direction - but we…
I brushed my fingertips over Evalyn's and stroked the edges of her dark, brown hair, all the while wishing that it was her I was embracing and not just her photograph. It had taken a whole fourteen months since Evalyn died for Nick and I to get to a point where we finally felt ready…
The world didn't see as he held her, How he kissed her cold cheek as he cried. Or how time seemed to stop and the ground opened up, When he heard that his baby had died. The world didn't see him paint over, The room he'd made one month before. How he packed up…
After Evalyn 