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…
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…
Dear Evalyn, It was two years ago that we spent our first and only Summer together. And I have spent alot of time over this passing month contemplating this. We had our moments that year, but I feel that spending those long, hot days with my head over a toliet bowl wasn't how I'd intended…
**Trigger : pregnancy / baby after loss** This time last year I was about four months pregnant with Iola. On the outside, I was a pregnant woman with a blossoming bump and a future that was about to be changed in the most wonderful of ways. But on the inside, I would go to…
**Triggers: pregnancy after loss / rainbow baby ** Explaining death to a four year old was never going to be easy. Where do you start? How do you start to explain that the perfect little world that they live in can sometimes be full of sorrow and heartache? How do you even begin to find…
Dear Ieuan, We were on our way home from your swimming lesson when you said it. The clouds that had been slowly rolling their way in throughout the course of the afternoon were now dispelling their contents in large raindrops on the car windscreen. The sun was beginning to be swallowed by the grey sky…
After Evalyn 