Each year as October rolls around I can feel the grief settling in. Not that it isn’t always present but it becomes extremely heavy. My mind becomes foggy. Fatigue sets in.
I have learned over the last twelve years to embrace this time. To lean in to my grief season. I take off work the entire week of A’s birthday. To tap into the grief, I go through his photo album, re-read sympathy cards from 2011, watch movies about death and dying, read books about babyloss and grief. I want to get those big, stormy emotions flowing. I’m going to be lethargic and emotionally fragile this time of year no matter what (it’s like my psyche remembers even if I try to distract myself) so I might as well make it therapeutic.
This year, with a two-year-old at home, I have packed up my grief kit and left the house. I cannot fall apart when my toddler is nearby constantly needing me and my maternal spidey sense is on alert. So I’m here at the public library, stifling my crying while I sit in a corner with soft instrumental music coming through my headphones and reading Brooke D. Taylor’s memoir, “Unimaginable.”
Maybe you know Brooke and her story from her blog - by the brooke. Either way, it seems like every other page she hits me right in the heart. Her ability to verbalize the experience of stillbirth and the aftermath is such a gift for me. It affirms what I’ve been through, how I have felt (and still feel). It crystalizes my own experience in ways that deepen my comprehension of it.
I haven’t even finished the book yet (I likely will before grief week is over) but I absolutely recommend it. Thank you Brooke for being brave enough to publish your most vulnerable times and feelings.
