Walk to remember and grieving together
The sun shone on my shouders, music played from the speakers, my husband’s hand rested on my knee. If I had the ability to rewind and replay moments, I would have chosen that one.
It was the 10th annual Walk to Remember in my area, and the 4th we’ve attended as parents. This year was in person, after multiple years of being virtual, and I didn’t think I would value it as much as I did. Being there, hearing the stories, listening to the music, writing letters that we pinned to clothesline and the ringing of the bell as each baby’s name was read.
The moment we hit the registration table, I saw a familiar face. “Oh, you’re Paris’ mom.”
From that moment on, everything we did we were Paris’ mom and dad. I didn’t expect the dull ache to hit me like it did, the way we all move through this life and every day I’m just Ali, and maybe people know me for my job or the fact that I had a transplant, but due to the fact that I carry no children in my arms, I’m not recognized as mother. When I get that, when I get to show up in the world not as Ali but as Paris’ mom, it’s everything.
I never expected his little life to forever change mine. I never expected the title of mom to be my favourite one to hold, even when I can’t hold him. The moments of motherhood where I get to experience a nearness to my boy, even when he’s not physically here, are the moments I wish I could replay forever.
I decided next year I want to come and bring a crowd of people. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, people who love us and by proximity love our son. Grief is a solitary act, but remembering doesn’t have to be. I said to Cody as we lay there in the sun that attending these kinds of events isn’t the kind of thing I would ask someone to do, knowing how heavy and uncomfortable grief is, but when someone enters into that grief, that remembering with you, it makes the pain just a little sweeter.
If you love someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one, who has lost a child to pregnancy or infant loss, when I tell you it means everything to them for you to say the name of their person, i mean it. Maybe they’ll cry, but more often than sometimes its only because you’ve entered into their grief and made it less of a solitary act.
I will never stop loving Paris, or being his mom. Motherhood looks different, but its still motherhood. When they say it takes a village, it doesn’t mean only for raising a living child. Parents with empty arms are still parents, and they need their village too. And when I tell you that grieving together means everything, its true.
