in most ways, the world is still the same, but the way i view it has changed forever.
some days it is hard for me to remember that all that's changed is my perception; that for other people, life goes on the same as it always did. that long before i myself began to see the world this way, when i was innocent and confident and safe, so many others were moving through life with hearts already broken, often in silence, virtually unseen.
but for me, one of the strangest challenges about existing in this half-world, between normal life and grief, is the realization that the truth - the truth that i live, every day - is not for everyone.
i remember very clearly the first time i realized i should have lied.
it was a few weeks after menucha's birth and death. i took my kids to the dentist for their regular cleaning. we were sitting in the waiting room, the kids well-behaved even though all the toys they loved coming to the dentist to play with had been put away and every other chair was turned over to ensure social distancing. our usual dental hygienist walked into the room with a big smile on her face.
"we're ready for you, hecht family!" she said. "i see one...two...three...but where's the new baby? at home with grandma?"
i stared at her. i had not expected her to remember i was pregnant. my kids stared at me. it felt like my brain had stopped.
i couldn't think of the right thing to say. so i said the truth.
"dead," i said. "she died."
her jaw dropped.
"did you...i'm sorry, did you say she died?"
the other patients in the waiting room looked up from their phones and magazines. the hygienist clapped her hands over her mouth. then she burst into tears.
"i'm sorry," i said awkwardly, as i shuffled my kids forward. "i shouldn't have just said it like that."
"what happened?" she whispered. "i mean...was it sids? oh, i'm so sorry!"
"no," i said, glancing around at me at all the watching eyes. "no, she...she died just before she was born. no explanation."
she continued to ask me questions about it as we settled my kids in their respective chairs, her eyes wide and full of tears. i felt terrible. here i was, derailing this nice woman's morning because i hadn't had the imagination to predict how this conversation would go. but...could i have lied in front of the kids? they knew she was dead. i didn't want to confuse them. and besides...she had asked about the baby. the baby was dead. that was the truth. could i have lied about something as fundamental as the life status of one of my children just to be polite?
i dragged everyone home from the dentist in an agony of guilt and confusion, feeling very much like a half-being, some kind of ghost that didn't belong in the real world but had nowhere else to live.
as time goes on, i find myself in situations like this more and more. and as i move through them, i become aware of how the answers and responses that appear instinctively in my head are entirely different from the things i must say and do in real life, to avoid inflicting my own pain on innocent bystanders who are just going about their day, just living in the same world they've always lived in, where babies don't die suddenly and inexplicably and families are defined by the number of children in them, which can easily be divined at a glance.
it happens when i'm scrolling through social media posts late at night, and every post in my parenting groups seems to blur into the same thing:
"due with number three any minute! what's the best way to get three carseats into my car model?"
"what's your advice for how to prepare my two-year-old to be a big brother? baby number two coming in two months!"
"i'm expecting my fourth and looking for the best new baby gadgets i haven't heard of. what can't i live without? go!"
a baby, i want to write. the only thing you can't live without is a baby.
don't buy the carseat now, i want to write. what if you have to return it, like i did?
don't promise him a baby, i want to write. there will be time for him to learn how to be a big brother if you bring your baby home. you don't know how cruel it is to tell them how wonderful it will be to have a sibling to take care of and watch grow and then to tell them, guess what? never mind. there is no baby. the baby is gone forever.
i know what you're thinking. why are you still in parenting groups? mute them, leave them, take a social media break. i did all those things in the beginning. but i am still a parent, even if i may not be the average parent anymore. i still have questions i want to ask about how to help a first grader with spelling, or how to get my four-year-old to eat more vegetables.
so i stay in the groups, and i keep scrolling. i don't write those terrible thoughts down. i only think them, as automatically as blinking, and move on.
"ugh is there anything worse than the newborn phase? the sleep deprivation, the hormones, the constant laundry??"
oh yes, i want to write. oh yes, there is.
but i don't.
there's the time i finally go to get my haircut, for the first time in a year, since long before the pandemic began. the stylist tuts at me. "your hair is coming out in fistfuls!" she says. "what happened? is it something medical?"
yes, i imagine myself saying. actually, i had a baby recently; my hair always falls out after i have a baby.
congratulations! i hear her saying back. how old is he now?
oh, she isn't, i imagine myself saying. she's dead, actually.
and just like that i am back at the dentist's office, with everyone in the waiting room staring at me, and the dental hygienist in tears.
so instead i shrug and say, "yeah, i don't know."
and the stylist says, "well, if it keeps coming out like this you might want to tell your doctor. or at least change your conditioner."
it goes on and on.
there is the pediatrician's office, where the nurse says brightly to me at my preschooler's checkup, "it must be so nice to finally have everyone out of diapers!"
there is my six-year-old, shouting, "it's not fair! why do i have two brothers and no sisters? and don't tell me the new baby that died is my sister! i can't play with a dead baby!"
there is the friend talking to me now about how difficult it will be to make pesach when her due date is the week after - and i was this person! my oldest son was born on pesach; i have been that person worrying about it seven months before! - and i want to shake her, want to scream, what makes you think you can know now if you will have a baby in seven months? what makes you think you are so invincible?
there is every time any person asks me, "how many children do you have?", every medical form that i have to fill out that starts like: "number of pregnancies," "number of live births," and then, my favorite, "explanation."
four pregnancies. three live births. one dead. explanation? i was told there is none. i have no idea. perhaps you can enlighten me, medical form.
it is an exhausting way to go through life. one answer, always, in my mind, as my mouth forms the banal words everyone else expects, that won't rock the boat, that won't ruin anyone's morning.
but i know now that there are some truths people are not equipped to hear. because no one wants to live that way, with that shadow over their happiness.
no one lives their life that way - until they have no choice.