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