It has been over seven years now since Matilda died

People think I should be over her death now

That her death is a thing of the past

The problem is that when your child dies

They die again every morning

When you wake up and realise that they are still gone

It was not a nightmare

Finding my baby dead in her cot was real

The grief is not so raw

Most of the time

The pain is not so sharp

Much of the time

The reality is that I have learned to hide my grief

I have learned to hide my hurting

Because after seven years people grow impatient and fed up

People no longer pretend to understand

And so I hide away

I cover up the tears and the anger

The fear

The loneliness

I still miss my baby every day

But I do not say

I still find myself wondering what she would be like

What we would all be like if she had lived

How our life might have been different

I would still give anything to have her here

But I do not share

I still cannot write things like this without my heart aching

And the tears flowing

I still have huge guilt for living my life without Tilda

And her death has changed me in many ways

Ways I am still discovering every day

I really struggle with anxiety

Which has been strangely helped and hindered by this year and the global pandemic

I still feel lost a lot of the time

And though I am surrounded by my living children

I feel very alone

I just feel that I do not belong with anyone

I do not fit anywhere

I am a hard person to understand

A hard person to get on with

I know that I have caused family rifts

Because people just cannot understand how the death of my child

Has changed my life and the way I see the world

And that is incredibly painful and causes A LOT of anxiety

I know that I am incredibly blessed to have a wonderful husband

Who I think often struggles to understand me himself

But he is always here and he helps me in so many ways

He is incredibly patient and loving

And I adore him

I love him more than he knows

I know that I am so so lucky to have four beautiful living children

They are all amazing

But having them does not mean I do not miss and grieve for Tilda

Life is always busy

And there is no time for stopping and staring

And so it stays locked away for the snatched moments I have just me

When I can embrace my grief and my dreams

Of what an 8 year old Matilda Mae might be like

To try and remember the weight of her in my arms

The smell of her

Tonight I will be lighting a candle for Matilda Mae

Tonight I will be crying for the baby she was

And the little girl she should be

Because tonight I can and it is accepted and okay

But babyloss does not just happen on one day, in one week, of one month each year

There is no time limit on grief

And everyone experiences it differently

Tonight as I remember our Tilda

I will be thinking of all the other babies with her in the sky

All the children who should be at home with their families

And all the families grieving

It is far too common for a family to lose a baby

“…The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They’re our students and our teachers and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we’re reminded that that capacity may well be limitless.” President Bartlett, The West Wing

Please light a candle tonight

The streets of heaven really are too crowded with angels x