It’s intriguing, the moment that it comes to mind. You’d think it would come in moments of quiet, in moments of solitude, when everything is still and that sleeping voice–that one that’s never forgotten, never gone, only dormant for a while–can raise its whisper in your thoughts. But it’s not the moments of silence; it’s not when I’m in bed at night, or gazing over my morning coffee before the boys wake up for the day. It comes in the moments of laughter, of daily life. It comes when we are all together in our day-to-day routine. The dinner table with the empty chair. The vacant spot in the van on the way home from the grocery store. The bedtime routine that is one goodnight kiss and I-love-you too short. Someone is missing. I don’t think of him–or her–as a baby anymore. I think of him as a child, as someone who had turned six this past summer, like he would have. In my mind’s eye, I see someone like Ephraim, but taller. I can’t help it. I don’t have much to go on. I wonder who he was. I wonder what it would be like to be a family of six. I wonder how different things would be. I wonder how different I would be. Miscarriage has been the most heartbreaking, confusing, jarring, baffling thing I have ever experienced. But it was all the worse because it was the loneliest thing I have ever experienced. It is not an easy loss to fathom. Even I couldn’t fathom what exactly I had lost until I had Ephraim, Clive, Anselm in my arms. It is an easy loss for others to forget. I never forget it.   Tomorrow is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. If you know a woman, a family, who has experienced this kind of loss, won’t you let her know that you haven’t forgotten?

Because she hasn’t.