Some Days Hang Heavier than Others: Living with Baby Loss

Sep 10, 2024

Poet and author Anna Mae reflects on the devastating and life-long impact of losing her baby at five months
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I would say that the death of a child is the worst of all human experiences. It’s somewhat ironic that today, the day that I’m moved to sit and write this article is the 44th anniversary of my five month old babies’ sudden passing to cot death, also the 35th of my father's, the same day but nine years apart.

Contemplating writing this morning the term, ‘some days just hang heavier than others’ came to mind, and so became my working title for my writing.

Later this afternoon Adele was playing on the radio singing, ‘Someone like you’ and I was moved to tears by the lyrics, ‘… for me it isn’t over’ it was these five words that literally stopped me in my tracks, as I reasoned, that’s the difference, the difference between these two bereavements.

The sudden loss of my baby isn’t over, will never ever be over. My grief doesn’t engulf my every thought or deed daily. But at times it does, it can feel like an open ravine that if I’m not careful I’ll disappear into, or a cupboard I’m scared to open in case the contents literally avalanche onto me, leaving me panicked and eager to close and lock the door quick. Sometimes it’s a wave of sadness, or a tsunami that literally engulfs me.

I never know when or where it will happen, it might, like today, be the lyrics of a song, something said on radio, television, or general conversation that’s not even bereavement related. Like for instance the way the sun shines against a leaf that for some reason makes me think of my baby. The longing for him, the missing him so much that I’m made mute, frozen in my grief, until the tears come and I am doubled over and almost brought to the ground.

I’ve lost other people over the years, but these two bereavements, have, without doubt, had the most impact on my life and both losses were sudden.

My present reaction to my dad’s anniversary is sad yes, but not the desolation that I still feel to this day when I attempt to think about the nightmare that remains around the colossal loss of my baby.

I’ve oftentimes said over the years that losing my dad was a piece of cake compared to the loss of my baby and I know he would forgive me for saying that. Reflecting now over the years, I’ve adjusted to his loss and accepted it, the loss of my baby however is totally different.

How does one adjust to such a loss, let alone accept it? I’ve been asked countless times how I got through it, and my answer is always that I don’t know, or that I’m not sure that I ever have, nor ever will.

I think that the effect of shock is underestimated, and perhaps is the nearest answer to ‘getting through it.’ I remember feeling drugged, as if I was slightly out of my body, as if I’d been hit around the head with a baseball bat. Like a puppet with its strings cut. Totally detached from reality. A nonentity, something to be stared at. Just a void with no purpose. I’d gone from having a healthy bouncing five month old baby that needed and relied on me for his very existence, to nothing.

I can only liken this trauma to having a limb torn off. We hear of phantom limb pain, where the injured party still feels the missing limb. I feel I understand this physicality, but alas, whereas there are specific drugs for the missing limb syndrome, there are no such medications for the syndrome of the missing child.

Many tribes around the world feel there should be a physical pain attached to the pain of grief and cut off their top finger joint for each loss. Some cut their hair to mourn the death, believing that by cutting their hair they actually lose a part of themselves.

I do feel that my loss has opened me to being more tolerant and empathic to others, not just human kind. In fact I think the animal kingdom have the edge on how to cope in a far better way than us humans. I recently watched a documentary where a mother whale carried her dead baby around with her for days, she wasn’t trying to resuscitate it or feed it, and so she was completely aware that it was dead, but she was simply not ready to let it go. I have seen a similar incident in another documentary where a chimpanzee mum held on to her dead baby until it was literally a piece of skin before she let it go.

In both cases their community supported them, respecting their decisions and not interfering in the way these mothers dealt with their loss. I don’t recommend we carry our dead babies around with us but I certainly think there’s a lot we could learn from our animal friends.

Anna Mae is the author of A Bit of Spirit and A Lot of Spit