There was one aspect of leaving that I knew I’d never be able to get over.
Starting again meant walking away from the cemetery. From where I sat most mornings and hugged the blanket we’d wrapped our baby boy in. I’d tried to imagine what it would feel like to have my child, now healthy and growing, in my arms, instead of this horrific nothingness.
It’s strange how empty arms can feel heavier than those that are full.
I reminded myself that every day that he wasn’t there. In the ground. Not really. The baby who’d kicked and wriggled and turned somersaults in my stomach. That life energy, the one that had got us so close to becoming parents, couldn’t possibly be in the ground. His grave was just a focal point for us. A place I could go to to cry. But he was always with me. Always. I carried the other losses, too, of course. But his was the cruellest of all.
Still, the thought of walking away from his resting place. From my child. It pulled at my heart. It pulled at my conscience. I tried not to think about leaving him for the last time too much. I tried not to think about who would look after his little plot of grass. Who’d put fresh flowers beside that little stone that bears my surname and that expression I’d come to hate. ‘Born sleeping’ – as if it had all been so peaceful. As if it hadn’t been brutal and bloody and horrific. Scalpels and stitches. Infusions. Blood. So much blood. As if there hadn’t been screaming, even though he never made a noise.
I begged the doctors to save him. Even though by the time I was awake he was already cold. His lips already blackened. I’d hugged him and tried to warm him up. I’d prayed for a miracle. I remember begging God to prove to me that He existed. Prove it by bringing my baby back. He’d done it with Lazarus. Surely if I pleaded and prayed and promised enough, He’d do this for me …
I’d have loved my baby so much. I do love him. I’d have given him the world and everything in it, but I never had the chance. And then I had to prepare myself to walk away from him forever without ever looking back. What kind of a mother did that make me?
When I went to the cemetery, I scratched at the ground, dug a little. Filled a little jam jar with soil. Soil that he nourished. I’d slipped it into my handbag, kissed the stone that bore his name. Noah. My beautiful Noah. Even in his silence, it suited him. It was as if it were made just for him. I’d whispered it – my beautiful Noah, that is. Then I’d sat back on the cold ground and tried to consign every detail to memory. No one was around. It was just the two of us. So I said his name out loud.
Then I shouted it to the sky and vowed that I’d never say it again.
The next baby name I’d mutter would be the one I’d raise to adulthood.