I gained membership to an awful club about a decade ago. Before I joined, I thought the membership was pretty exclusive, but now I know there are way too many of us.

Statistically, 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in miscarriage. That's a staggering number, and it doesn't even factor in late losses, stillbirths and the rest.

When I said goodbye to my twins, I had no idea of the sisterhood surrounding me. Now I see us, in the grocery store, in the elevator, sitting in churches, mothers without our children. Even when there are more children, our hearts know who is missing.

"I don't know what to do," they tell me, "I am so sad but I was barely even pregnant..."

"I shouldn't be so sad," they say, "my mom/husband/doctor/friends say something was wrong with it/the baby is in heaven/we weren't ready for kids/it wasn't really a baby..."


Listen, mamas... you should be so sad. In a perfect world, no mother would ever have to live in a world without their child. You, however briefly, carried the soul of your child in your body. You are connected forever. You are their mother. Name your baby, mourn your baby, remember your baby. If someone can't empathize with you or understand that, then thank God they have not had to experience that kind of loss, but don't let their comprehension control your emotion. You know, we always know, deep down inside, who we carried.

Someday, on the other side, we will sit by a river with the children we always knew, always loved. We will know them and they will know us. In that reality, we will finally be complete. Until then, we remember them, and we offer the hand of sisterhood, the grace to weep and remember.

My twins would be twelve today.

I live just outside eternity. My mother heart knows that my children are just out of my reach, through a veil. There, in the safety of that world, they grow and they play without any of the risks and suffering of this side. In that world, they know my dad and other loved ones I lost a long time ago. In that world, they are fully healthy, whole and loved.
If it had been up to me, they'd be on this side, blue eyes and dark blonde hair, full of jokes and witty thoughts. If I got to choose, they would be wrestling for possession of the Wii remote, eating too much cereal, outgrowing shoes at an absurd rate.

I'd be baking an imperfect cake today, and they would make fun of it a little, but not too much, because they wouldn't want to hurt my feelings.

If I got to pick, they'd be climbing in my bed at night, smelling like sweat and boy-feet, wrapping long arms around me and telling me about their days. "Go to bed," I would tell them, sternly, because I would see them again in the morning and this contact would not be all I ever had.

Even knowing they live in perfection, I'd choose this side, where they would sit across from me, disappointed and confused by the darkness in people. I'd explain learning to love broken people, even as they held back tears because they are big now, too big to cry about being rejected. I'd cradle their fuzzy summer haircutted-heads and ache that I couldn't keep them from sorrow. Still, I'd pick this side.

They will never know a broken bone, a broken heart, a bee sting or a fall from grace. I'm grateful for that. But a mama will always wish her baby was in her arms.

Happy birthday, boys. You will always be loved.

Daddy,

Sixteen years today. Sixteen years since we stood around that hospital bed and waited for the beeping to stop. Sixteen years since Uncle Randy sang a hymn to see his beloved brother out. It's been sixteen years and part of me still thinks you're pulling a prank. I still see glimpses of salt and pepper hair, a guy in a denim shirt climbing in a tiny red car. Surely you aren't really gone. But you are, and in a few years, I will have lived longer without you than I lived with you.

In a few years, a few breaths, just moments from now, I will be as old as you, and then I will be older than you ever were.

I can say this, you made the most of 52 years. You used to tell me about the hippie days, when you'd say "Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse," which is just the kind of morbid humor we both found so funny. We still do, Daddy, all of us. Well, maybe not Leah, she is appropriately horrified by such talk. Mama told me when she goes to sprinkle her ashes at Walmart on 242, because she was so happy there. It's not funny but it's so funny. In some ways your irreverence toward death makes it easier, the loss. Death is not the boss of us, we keep living and laughing.

You didn't live like you were creating a legacy, you just lived. You woke up in the morning and you loved us. You woke up in the morning and you loved Jesus, and you worked and you wrote and you directed, always with the laughter, always safe and surrounding. You had no intention of dying but when death took you, you left with the right words said, because you always said how proud you were and how you loved us.

It's gotten easier, living here without you. At first I didn't know how to exist. But since you've pulled off this prank for a solid 16 years, all of us have learned how to remember you and celebrate you as part of who we are. You didn't set out to leave a legacy but you did.

So in these moments, this life I have, I will remember to say I love you. I will do my work and love the people around me and just be, because this is the stuff they write history books about.