About a month and a half after delivering Calvin, I wrote a post on my failings as a mother. I just felt so broken… A broken woman who couldn’t fulfill her biological role of carrying to term. A broken wife who could not give her husband a child. A broken Christian who did not have enough faith for a miracle. A broken mother who did not keep her baby safe.
It isn’t all my fault–I know this on a cognitive level. I know that my husband doesn’t resent me, that he feels blessed to have me. I know that I didn’t kill my babies. I know that my babies’ deaths were not caused by me not praying well or hard or often enough. But viscerally, it’s harder to believe. I am still broken, and with that comes fear and anxiety and feelings of inadequacy.
Like those shattered plates in the picture (broken because my support group and I decided to throw thrift store plates against the exposed foundation of a home that was very slowly shifting downhill), I am damaged goods. Though I am working on it, no amount of glue or care or piecing back together will ever make me who I once was. And I’m okay with that. The scars of loss and grief and mourning are sacred to me. I’d rather be broken and blessed by my babies than be whole without them.
Have you been broken?
What broke you? Which parts of you did it break? How has this changed you?
This post is a part of a series called Unpacking Grief, which I began as part of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge.
You are beautiful in your brokenness….just beautiful.
The broken plate analogy resonates with me. Losing my daughter certainly broke my heart and shattered my dreams of motherhoood. It also brought back other losses from my childhood. It breaks me over and over again every time I see a third trimester pregnant woman. I see that the lady and her baby has made it while I failed to bring Joey to full term. Then there is so much theology that can be distorted with the concept of prayer…. maybe that’s why my husband and I don’t always like it when people imply that we’ll be pregnant soon b/c they are praying for us. What is the difference between their prayers and our prayers? Thank you for your thought provoking post.
Patty, I’m so sorry for your heartache. I wouldn’t even know how to respond if someone had implied their prayers would get us pregnant. I wonder what the response would be if you had actually asked, “What’s the difference between your prayers and mine?”