Go forward and honor your child. Live a life.

By Sara

I am so sorry for your losses. You will get through and life will be good again. Please know that you can handle anything now. Not much could be worse than what we have all been through. I still think of my baby every day, but it doesn’t break my heart anymore. It just is, there, in the background. I have moved along, dealt with my loss and accepted it.

My new outlook on life is a little less naïve, but stronger. I no longer expect that things will be okay, I accept that what will be will be, and I have the strength to take it on. I feel confident to face what may lie ahead. I’m ready to take the punches. Once upon a time I never dreamed that a punch would come anywhere near me. Now, I’ve got my gloves on, and I am fighting fit. Bring it on.

The women I met online got me through the hardest part of my life. I want to pay it forward. This is my way to honor my child. Help others with my experience. And remember my lessons—lessons not to judge, not to criticize. Lessons not to take a moral stance based on the idea that my morals would never be tested.

So, I want you to know, each of you, that you will emerge from this hell like newly tempered steel. You’ve been blasted and bashed so much that you are now much stronger, much more useful, and much more valuable than the soft metal that went into the furnace.

When the pain eases and the clouds part, when the sun tentatively streams back into your life, you can once again smile without guilt. When you can once again wake without horror at finding your baby gone, and you can walk past the baby aisle in the supermarket without breaking down. When the inept comments of others seem simply that, rather than as viciously sharpened spears aimed at your heart. When you can sit in the doctor’s office without having a panic attack. When the world stops spinning and crashing down around you, and the dust settles, and there is peace. Then, go forward and honor your child. Live a life.

This hurts like hell. This destroys you. But you will get through. And when you do, you will be better than you were before. This is your angel’s gift to you.

©Christie Brooks—Originally published in Our Heartbreaking Choices, edited by Christie Brooks. Published here by permission of Christie Brooks.