[Janeytwo]

Hey Stacy,

Once some years ago, I said to my then-therapist who'd had an abortion that I felt that she was braver than I was, a better mom than I was, because she hadn't handed her child over to strangers to raise. She said, "No Janey. Birthmoms suffer more because they spend their lives wondering. I don't have to do that. My child is dead. That's one of the reasons I had an abortion. I couldn't face the years of silence and suffering. That was too much for me."

At the time I didn't really relate or understand that she was trying to get me to open up but I've come to see that, in that argument, she was correct.

There is no official "grieving" for birthmothers. My mom said "You made your bed now lie in it!" the day I came home from the hospital. I seriously doubt anyone anywhere would say that to someone who just buried their child. Not, of course, that the comment would fit anyway. But, I'm sure you get my drift.

Is there a finality in the death of a child? I hope I never find the answer to the that question, but I suspect the answer is no. I think that those parents spend the rest of their lives wondering what kind of person their child would've been, who they would've married, what their children would've looked like. Probably those parents spend the rest of their lives with only framed pictures of their children for company. That child forever frozen in time at the age they died. Their life abruptly ended.

And I'm certain that just as I sat at birthday parties looking at empty chairs and missing my children? Somewhere there is a parent who's child has died of some terrible disease and they're at a birthday party looking at empty chairs and thinking "God how I miss you!"

That may not be the long shadow of silent shame that we have suffered unjustly beneath. In that aspect, we suffer uniquely and have been mistreated gravely by society and those we love.

But loss is loss.

This will sound very negative and I ask everyone to forgive me for that. But I don't believe for a minute that time heals all wounds. I think that some of them it closes enough so that they seep but are survivable.

Just my thoughts.

Thanks for listening.

Janey