Baci Abroad Blog
To have and to hold: a story of loss and love
Dae-Han and I had returned from a doctor appointment on the afternoon of Tuesday, February 13th, when I decided to go for a run to try and process the news the doctor had given us.
I was just steps into the uphill battle that is the path we take in World Cup Park when I began to sob. I was confused and angry. So angry. I was grieving, but it was also a stuck grief. A grief held in “maternal purgatory,” stuck in a broken elevator that might take you up to the maternity ward or, sooner, down to the morgue.
My face twisted, tears pooling, I called Ceci. She answered from her red Ikea chair in Ho Chi Minh City.
“Hey babe,” she said softly. I had already texted her that at my eight-week appointment, the doctor had not found a heartbeat for our little Poppy.
Four weeks prior, I had boarded a plane to spend my birthday in Hong Kong with Ceci and another friend, Allison. On the plane, I wrote in a journal, just for Poppy and me.
“Poppy, it’s your very first trip! As a tiny poppy seed inside my belly ♡. We are heading to Hong Kong for my birthday weekend with Auntie Ceci — what a delight that it was this morning just before noon when 아빠 called to confirm “Poppy is here!” We really already knew this but the doctor’s call gave us the 1,000,000% verification.”
On my birthday, little Poppy’s implantation was confirmed, a process that miraculously hadn’t needed any scientific intervention. Now, the day before Valentine’s Day, my heart was cracking in half.
As I held the phone with Ceci on the other end, my words were stolen by more sobs. In an act of grace, sisterhood, and bearing witness, Ceci held her soft gaze on me, her hand on her heart.
For the next two days, Dae-Han and I tried to out-math math, to recalibrate the timeline and come up with a way that I could (as the doctor offered) be too early in the pregnancy to hear a heartbeat. But intuition is a way of knowing far more truthful than numbers for me, and each time I tried to hang on to Hope, she slipped like grains of sand through my fingers. I knew.
The embrace that my womb had been holding Poppy in began to release on February 15th. Cramps, first trimester contractions, were my womb’s way of telling me the time of letting go had begun. Beyond logic and reason, I wanted to feel the physical pain. And it came, for three days.
On the second day, I sat in a circle of dear friends. My friend Jason, our inquiry group facilitator, had finished guiding us through a meditation. The pace of my heart quickened as she began contractions. I was sobbing once again. My friend Caroline was the only one in the room who knew that I had begun to lose Poppy, but soon the room was filled with the sobs of others, these five friends whose hearts could feel my pain without yet an explanation.
To be held in a space like this is spiritual. To so viscerally feel the connection between us is to grieve and heal collectively, is to know the foundation of our purpose on Earth.
If grief is collective, it is also solitary.
To have and to hold
In an alone moment, I slide my hands into the water, searching for you, Poppy. The size of a blueberry or maybe a kidney bean. Blue, the color of my heart as I push around so much red in the water to try and find you. To hold you. All the blood, yours and mine that was now flushed from my body, the blood that had been building a heart for you, a heart that did not beat in my womb but now flutters in the arms of Grandpa Art and Grandpa Red and NieNie.
In so short a time, you taught us so much, our tiny Poppy. How to nurture more, my body, and each other. You taught us how to marvel at a miracle, how to open to Joy, how to communicate with each other about priorities. You reminded us to hold tenderly to Hope. And we hold you and your lessons, Sweet Poppy.
On loss and love
We honored you and our time with you with petals down the Han River. Petals for Poppy. Your 아빠 read these words:
“It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers [and sisters] in what we share ... We know that there is no help for us but from one another, and that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand ... You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.”
You have given us the chance to just begin to touch the love of being an 아빠 and a mama. This was the gift of so much Joy, and we know that Joy will expand and increase when you send a little brother or sister to be with us.
As I watched the rose and tulip petals softly drift down the river on this foggy day in Seoul, I felt like plunging into the water to gather them up again, to have them back, to hold them and rewind time. To knock on Universe’s grand door and demand a different destiny for you.
As I felt the pain of letting you go, I reminded myself of the words of Thích Nhất Hạnh, my Poppy. “Peace is every step.”
Your 아빠 and I walked the path together after watching your petals. We held hands and we acknowledged the peace of this soft, foggy day. In your short time with us, you have woven 아빠 and I even closer together.
I love you so much, our sweet, sweet Poppy. Peace is every step.
Love always,
Your mommy
End note: We often say or think that we cannot begin to really feel another’s grief. And, yes, there is truth to this. Any Grief is unique and takes her own shape in how she is held by her owner. And yet, this week, my grief has been held and shared by so many others and this has mattered very much to me. My husband’s, mom’s, dad’s, sisters’, grandma’s, aunties’, friends’ and colleagues’ words have landed softly on my heart, warming it where it hurt so much. Food from friends, a comedy show shared, phone calls, Marco Polo prayers, and just there-ness has mattered, has made a difference.
Sometimes we are afraid to say or do anything when someone is grieving, fearing it will be the wrong thing, but what has mattered most is that people showed up. I am not surprised by this — I know how wonderful my people are. Every word and deed has helped me to know that, in this moment, I am not alone.
My school, as well, allows for up to 5 paid days of leave for miscarriage. This is attuned to what many women may need following a miscarriage. Perhaps there are those of us who want the distraction of work right away, but for me, my body and spirit were not ready. I am advocating that anyone who has the power to make changes — and essentially, don’t we all — look at policy to see how it honors and protects women’s health and wellbeing.
Peace be every step.