There are days when getting out of bed feels like a punishment. When the world moves on like nothing happened, and I'm stuck. My body hollowed out and my heart heavy with a name that never got spoken aloud.
After a miscarriage, people want you to heal quickly, quietly. But the grief is loud. It lingers. And in the thick of that silence and ache, it can feel impossible to keep going. This list isn’t about silver linings or toxic hope. It’s a raw offering to keep on living when it feels like everything inside of me has died.
One: The memory of my baby
I only knew him through a line on a stick, a flutter in my belly, a dream at night, and then a tombstone. But he existed. And that changes my life, our life, forever. His short existence deserves to be remembered, even in the quietest ways.
Two: The love surrounding me
Even when I feel hollowed out, there are people trying, awkwardly, imperfectly, to love and care for me. Sometimes they say the wrong thing. Most of the times they say nothing. But they’re there and that matters.
Three: The people who still needs me
I'm thinking about our parents and siblings. There might be a child in the future. Or a friend who’s going through the same experience. Or someone I haven’t met who will need to hear my story. Now or later, I might be someone’s lifeline, and that's enough to make me stay.
Four: The journey of my own healing
My body has been through a war it didn’t ask for. My heart, even more so. I don’t owe anyone a quick recovery. But I do owe myself the chance to put one piece back at a time. Slowly. Carefully. Lovingly.
I am still breathing and that is not nothing.
Five: The resilience
I might feel weak and don't want to keep going, but I will. One ugly cry at a time. This is the kind of unpolished resilience. This is brutal, desperate, and stubborn kind that keeps my heart beating when I don’t want to.
Six: The future version of myself
Months ago, it doesn’t feel like it. But there’s a version of me right now that laughs in the sun again. And there will be another version of me in the future, the one who remembers without crumbling. One who tells their story without choking on it. She’s not here yet. But she’s possible and she’s waiting.
Seven: The possibility of joy
Joy. The word of betrayal when you're grieving. It's like I'm forgetting. But it’s not. One day, something small will crack the sadness. My cat doing something silly. A song I used to sing to the belly. And I'm going to let it in. I don’t have to choose between joy and grief. That’s the awful, beautiful truth.
Eight: The hope of someday
Not the promise nor the certainty. Just the tiniest flicker of hope that someday I will long for things again. That I will find something to look forward to. It’s not naive. It’s survival. I don't want to let it die.
Nine: The list of unfinished dreams
There were things I wanted before the loss. They might feel small, irrelevant, or impossible now, but they were once real. And maybe one day, they will matter again and I will give myself permission to return to them or create new ones.
Ten: The unexpected moments of beauty
There will be a day when the sky is unfairly beautiful, and I will hate it for a second. There will be a day when I received a nice gestures from strangers, and I will question it for a second. And then maybe, when I take a deep breathe, I finally notice, and maybe shed some tears, that I just encounter a kind of beauty. The kind that meets me in my grief instead of trying to fix it.
Eleven: The chance to mother
I am still a mother. Maybe not in the way the world recognizes. But in the way I show up. In the way I keep loving. In the way my arms still ache to hold. There are ways to pour that love into the world and I don't want it to go to waste.
Twelve: His legacy of love
He never took a breath, but he changed every single thing. The love I felt didn’t disappear when he did. It’s in my veins and bones now. It shapes the way I live, and that is the kind of love he carved, even if no one else sees it.
Thirteen: Because my life is sacred
There are moments when it hurts just to exist. Because no one understand griefs, unless it's theirs. But I believe my life has bigger meaning outside of what we've lost. Not because I have to "move on" or "keep on living", but because surviving this makes me realize how life is holy in a way a few people understand.
There are no neat ways to wrap this list up, no perfect ending to grief. Some days, I will find a reason to keep going. Other days, I'll just survive without one. And that’s okay.
If you're also in grief, you don’t have to be strong all the time. You just have to stay. One breath, one hour, one day at a time.
