Abstract
My grief is inextricably intertwined with her loss, and the grief of her family.
It's been one year.
Exactly.
From her good-bye.
Not my loss.
Or was it? Which her?
Jane was my patient. And her family.
No, mostly her family.
Her husband, her two children, 8 and 12,
who would grow up without their mother.
And “Jessica” was my daughter, well, sort of.
I feel like she was my daughter,
But some days she was just a cluster of cells, a child that not only never was,
But was never meant to be.
It.
She.
Jessica.
Left me two weeks after Jane.
It.
She.
Jessica.
Was with me the whole time I cared for Jane, for her family, for her children…
For her daughter.
Jane never knew. It wasn't relevant. I hid my joy and nausea with Zofran.
But no, Jane never knew.
I wonder, sometimes, if Jessica knew.
I wonder, did she choose me?
Did she choose to be “held her whole life” by me?
I remember Jane's last day, her chest rising with each ventilator breath,
Head back, Eyes closed.
She had already left us long before the final good-bye.
And Jessica's first pictures, gray, grainy, and the sound of her heartbeat.
An emotional day to celebrate the beginning of one life and mourn the end of another.
I remember the cramping, the body's way of getting rid of “a mistake” in the DNA.
That's what the OB said.
It.
She.
Jessica.
“A mistake.”
Held her whole life by me in my womb.
Loved by me every minute together, and so many more later.
The cramping.
“Expelling the contents.”
One final hug for my daughter that never was, never was to be.
“A mistake” who was loved by me for her whole life.
Sometimes in my sadness, I imagine Jane, whole and
healthy, her beautiful smile. She is holding and cradling
Jessica. I thank God for her, and ask her to love my child
as I love the children she left behind.
And I thank God for my vocation, a healer in the midst of so much sorrow.
For myself and for others,
As we journey through grief,
Changed forever by separate paths that embrace for a moment.
As Doctor and Patient,
As Living and Deceased,
As Mothers.
