Living back in Watertown, just down the road from my high school home, living mere minutes away from teens whose parents live hours or entire states away, being “around” when so many of my high school friends descend on the campus for big event weekends, scrolling through grads and hocos and allllll things high school more and more frequently – it just has me thinking lately.
Because if things had been different, we’d be a part of it all.
I pull, for a moment, out of the other struggles that seem to consume 2021 me, and travel back to a different time of grief. The “before” years. The infertility years. The waiting and wondering and hoping and being crushed years. All the would-have-beens.
And this post isn’t about that. Because this day isn’t about that. This day is about the babies who WERE knit together – the babies who were created and were growing and were celebrated and were loved and were prepared for and some – some were even held. And then they were gone. And THAT is a different story from mine. This body of mine has never carried a pregnancy, that I know of, but this body of mine has also never carried that kind of grief.
That grief, I imagine, is a series of would-haves that doesn’t freshly resurface after a few years of not really thinking much about it. That grief, I imagine, walks around with you every day and changes so much about you. That grief, I imagine, consumes so much more than one day on the calendar.
So why make it a day? Why make it a thing when these babies are loved and remembered and their families could never, ever forget them even if they wanted to?
If pregnancy and/or infant loss has never directly touched your life, I encourage YOU to take this one day.
one day to slow down and stop the scroll
one day to LISTEN to their stories
one day to LEARN
one day to REMEMBER these littlest loved ones
one day to GROW IN GRACE and COMPASSION
one day to VALIDATE
one day to ENCOURAGE and LOVE WELL
one day for us who are 3 in 4, for us who haven’t had to walk that road, to recognize the immense blessing in that… a blessing we might have taken for granted
Friends-my DEARLY LOVED friends-if you know me well, you know I have zero candles in this home 
that I can light for you today. But what I CAN do, and am more than happy to do, is to see you, to lift you in prayer, validate your losses, honor your memories, listen to your stories, and love you so very much.
Thy Will Be Done 