i write this the day after tisha b'av, the day of mourning and fasting we as a people have set aside each year to commemorate the destruction of our temple, of our hopes and dreams and innocence.
as you might imagine, it's a day that has taken on new meaning for me this year. because i understand, like never before, why it is important to remember loss.
every death is painful. but i am learning - as so many have before me - that there is something uniquely awful about the death of a baby no one else in your life met...and that is that how easily your child is forgotten.
for most people in your life, your baby never fully existed. in my case, because of the pandemic, many people didn't even know i was pregnant. and then of course there was no naming ceremony, no kiddush. no one will ever see me pushing her to shul in a stroller. there is just no frame of reference. she never really occupied a space, either physical or mental, in the lives of anyone but my family.
even her death was so sudden and lonely that it seems almost imaginary. there was no funeral or eulogy or shiva; in judaism, you don't have those things for a baby that dies before it is born.
so for most people, i think, even now, only two months later, their awareness of the baby i mourn is hazy, blurred around the edges.
in my head, sometimes, i hear how people will talk about it later. how many kids do they have? three. wait...i think there was another one but it died at birth...or maybe it was a miscarriage? i don't know, something was wrong.
and then eventually, as new people move to our town and old friends leave, as children grow up and years go on: there are three hecht kids.
even i find myself forgetting sometimes, as if her abrupt death cancels out her life. on the phone with my GP one day, i found myself struggling to describe a symptom i had developed during my pregnancy that lingered afterward, mostly because i could not figure out how to describe the pregnancy. was it really my fourth pregnancy if it didn't produce a living child? have i really given birth to four full-term babies if you can only see three? i find pictures on my phone of myself with my kids when i was still pregnant and am startled by them. was i really pregnant all that time? how could i have been pregnant for so long with a baby i would never bring home?
for most people, tisha b'av is over. but tisha b'av is where i live now. and i am tortured by the knowledge that as life returns to normal for you, you will forget what i mourn.
and i know, i know it is only human to forget. there is so much in life we have to keep track of and respond to and remember. how are you supposed to remember the existence of a child you have no memories of, whose life will never make a practical impact on your own? when you are setting the table for shabbos lunch, you will never have to set a place for my little girl. when you are putting together a carpool or a playdate with my kids, you'll never have to make sure you have a booster for her. she leaves no footprint.
so she fades.
but please, please - don't forget her.
because when you forget her, i lose a little more of her.
you see, when someone who has lived dies, there is still a way for others who knew them to connect with their loved ones. you can reminisce with their family about time you spent with that person; the foods they liked, the jokes they made, their favorite holidays. the person who has passed away can come up in conversation. in some small way, their presence can linger in the world they've left.
when you speak about the person who has died, you give their family an opportunity to cherish their love for that person, to remember how important that person was not just to them but to so many people in the world. it is still terrible and sad and so painful, but there is something there for the grieving to cling to.
but you never knew my baby. her short life didn't touch yours. she had no favorite foods or holidays or jokes. dead babies don't just "come up" - or at least, not in any non-horrific way. (sample terrible way i have accidentally landed on it: "i still haven't found a stroller i like." "oh, you should just use mine - it's not like i need it!" my poor friends.)
it feels like there is never really a reason to talk about her. everything about her life is finished. there is nothing new or relevant about her that will relate to your life, your experiences now. and there are so many other things to talk about, so many safer, more comfortable things.
as time goes on, it begins to feel, for me, like i imagined the whole thing. did i really have a baby if no one else remembers her existence? can her absence really be so devastating if no one else notices she's gone?
but i know i am being unfair. after all, what do i want from you? if you never knew my baby, how can you remember her?
count her.
count her when you think about my kids. count her when you think about my parents' grandchildren. not "the two boys and the daughter and the one they tried to have." i have two sons and two daughters; one just happens to be dead. my parents have nine grandkids, not eight. i know that's confusing for little kids, and i get it if it's simpler to just say three for their sake. but please remember, for yourself, that there are four. just because she isn't alive anymore, please don't make it as if she never was.
remember her in the summer.
she was born june 5. june will always be a month of tears for me, but before she was born i thought it would be the perfect month for her: the beginning of summer, the happiest time of the year. if you can, if you are close enough to me to know and mark my other kids' birthdays, remember hers. she will not get older, but that day will always be her day in my life. share it with me.
ask me about her.
i am starved to speak about her. i was so excited to share her with you when i thought she would live; now that she is gone, i need to share her with you because she is so desperately important to me, and i ache to remember the perfectness of her fingers or the curve of her cheek, the sweetness of her face. when babies live we talk about their length, their birth weight, their hair, all kinds of things - but even though my baby died, i still think about those small details. they are even more precious to me because there will be no other new details to associate with her. those few, inconsequential pieces of data are all i have. let me share them with you.
do something kind in her memory.
she never had the chance to make a difference in our world. but if the tragedy of her birth and death move you to be a more thoughtful friend, a more patient parent, a more sensitive colleague, or any other small act of goodness, it lends a sense of purpose to her life. and it makes her more substantial in your life and my own.
i will never forget. you probably will sometimes, and that's okay. but if you can, remember my baby. remember my little girl, so that i can remember her, too.