Sharing stories
Telling your story makes such a difference.
You don't owe anyone your story, of course. You don't need to produce your trauma for someone else to consume it. You don't need to stand up in front of a group of people or post about it on Instagram. That's not what I mean. What I mean is, when you are sitting in someone's living room, and they share with you a struggle they had 3 years ago or 25 years ago or 50 years ago, and you make a connection to your own life, often there is healing in that connection.
This morning I was in a music class for our living child with other parents who were pregnant or had babies with their toddlers, and I had trouble keeping it together. I was able to visit someone in the afternoon, though. I was sitting in her living room, and she was talking about wanting a big family but having to stop after one pregnancy (a successful one, thank goodness). She put words to my sadness in the music class that morning.
I am so grateful for a living child, and yet all I've wanted my whole life is a big, loud family, and I will never have it the way I imagined it. This morning I felt surrounded by people who get to have what I want so easily. Which of course is not true since I don't know the other parents' stories, but that's how I felt. Hearing another person's story this afternoon helped me feel less alone and name what had been bothering me so much. And in listening to her story and reflecting on my own, I was able to let go a little of the morning's resentment and celebrate the fun that I had with my living child in that class. He loved running around with his edge of this parachute for one of the songs, and took his work so seriously. He showed me new dance moves I hadn’t seen before. He snuggled me so tightly when I was feeling my worst. It was not such a terrible morning, after all.
Hearing this other woman’s story also helped me to release my grip on the absolutes about what I will never have. There are other ways to live into that dream of a big, loud family; even though none of those ways are easy, and none of them will have Autumn or our other lost babies. But those "nevers" are so easy to grasp ahold of that I often ignore all the possibilities of what still can be. So I am grateful to receive someone else's story today, and allow my own imagination to break up the absolutes that block it.
There is healing in the connection between our stories. May we all find some of that healing- and may we all be part of that healing.
