Empathizing with Elizabeth

I’ve written about Elizabeth here at stillbirthday before.

Elizabeth, was a very old woman. She waited a very, long time to become pregnant. When she did, she remained in seclusion until her fifth month of pregnancy. And I’ve shared why I believe this is.

To the world,

When you tell me to get over my loss, when you define it for me, when you try to take it away from me, it feels as though not only has my child died, but it feels as if you want me to believe my child never lived. In short, not only did I lose my child, but your empty platitudes serve to threaten my motherhood.

In grief, I can related to Elizabeth hiding, until it was absolutely apparent that she was a mother.

You have an opportunity to invite mothers out into the community to share the pain, the beauty and the power of their motherhood. They’ve already lost a child. Don’t try to take away their motherhood.

For suggestions on how to better come alongside a bereaved mother, please visit our friends and family resources section.

Learn about Mothering the Mourning

Learn about the beginning of Mothering the Mourning.

Mothering the Mourning holds a radical and revolutionary truth that grief should not be silenced, the love for our children should not be closed up, we should not disengage from our relationship with our children at their physical death and we should not detach from our own reality of love. While grief is the collection of feelings we have, mourning is the outward expression of these feelings. Not all bereaved parents embrace both. I have grief, and I have come to realize that my grief needs mourning, and, my mourning needs my mothering.

In my book The Invisible Pregnancy, I further explore the challenging concepts of nurturing and disciplining our mourning, and other challenging concepts such as recognizing the beautiful truths in what I identify as ec0-thanatology. If these concepts seem intriguing, I’d recommend getting your copy of The Invisible Pregnancy, or consider hosting an Invisible Pregnancy Mother Workshop– and you and I can meet! Mothering the Mourning is my way of recognizing that my grief connects me to my child, my mourning connects me to my grief, and that I can seek out and find the many beautiful aspects of these connections.