When Life Leaves You

I cannot sleep. It is 2:00 am and I just spent 30 minutes on the toilet crying. Every time I wipe there is blood and I am reminded that a life has left me and the shell is expelling itself one ounce of blood at a time. Nearly 8 weeks ago I was pregnant. We saw her heart beat at 6 weeks when she was no more than 3 centimeters long. She was our little "Bean". Her heart stopped beating a day or two later but we didn't know it until 7 weeks and a couple of days. Before science confirmed it, I began to not feel pregnant somewhere between 6-7weeks. The small spots of blood were my ominous heralds of loss. The ultrasound that made real my intuitive voice, showed the silence of her heart and all I heard was screaming. I knew she was gone but the words " No longer viable" bounced like exploding bombs through my brain. Now I wait. I see remnants of the home that was prepared to house her inside my body and I cry. I have learned something about myself. I prefer to grieve alone. I may share of it in words but I prefer solitude when racked with tears.

We named her Nahara long ago, this little one we will meet in the Abha Kingdom. Here name is Aramaic for 'Light'. Although science will not confirm it, we felt that she was a girl. We would catch ourselves speaking of her with pronouns like she and her.

I cannot sleep because in the afternoon today I will face another confirmation of our loss when we meet with our OBGyn.

Life has left me. There is something sacred and profoundly intimate about sharing my body with another soul, a developing of the temple that would house her true reality.

I am sleepy now. The words have left my head and my eyes grow heavy. My dear Nahara is surrounded by love and light in the company of greatness. A depth of gratitude I cannot convey goes toward Abdu'l-Baha for penning the words I feel in my heart that sweet Nahara is saying:

‘O thou kind Mother, thank divine Providence that I have been freed from a small and gloomy cage and, like the birds of the meadows, have soared to the divine world—a world which is spacious, illumined, and ever gay and jubilant. Therefore, lament not, O Mother, and be not grieved; I am not of the lost, nor have I been obliterated and destroyed. I have shaken off the mortal form and have raised my banner in this spiritual world. Following this separation is everlasting companionship. Thou shalt find me in the heaven of the Lord, immersed in an ocean of light.’

Abdu’l-Baha (Selection From the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, pp 201)

I love you.