During the second UK lockdown, in that long, grey winter of 2021, my grandmother died. Like so many people, we had to have one of those terrible, socially distanced covid funerals – sitting pews apart and with absolutely no wake of any kind.
It was the first time I truly understood why rituals are so important. As much as I might have hypothesised before that a part of what makes miscarriage such a disorienting experience is its lack of a common ritual, process, or shared etiquette, this was only something I had reasoned through intellectually, not sensed physically.
But that day was different. After the short service, the need to be with my family was something I felt in my body. It pulsed through me, this desire to share memories in a pub function room. I ached with the need to drink two glasses of tepid white wine much too quickly, to laugh inappropriately at old stories, and, most of all, to see the way I was feeling reflected back to me in a roomful of familiar faces.
It never occurred to me how much difference any of that could make, in grief. But, to borrow from Rebecca Solnit, rituals, like pilgrimage, make it possible to move, step by step, towards ‘intangible spiritual goals that are otherwise so hard to grasp’.
And on that terrible day, with no choice but to drive home again, suspended in our household bubbles, it felt as though we’d skipped a step.
It felt wrong. It felt like agitation, pent-up energy, a job half-done, too much adrenaline, too many things unsaid. Wait, I’m not ready.
Of course, I would have felt the absence of ritual after our miscarriages, too. I just didn’t recognise it for what it was. Having never seen a pregnancy loss ritual – or even heard of one – I didn’t know what I was missing. I didn’t see how it might have helped me grasp the intangible, take the next step.
This month, if things had worked out differently, I might have given birth to our second child; a sibling for my son.
I worry, quite a lot, when I write things like this, that people will think I walk around all day ruminating on it. Which I don’t. It’s not a scab I’m picking at, over and over, it’s just something I know: an internal arithmetic. 7x7 is 49. I would have been due in February.
I have never done anything in the past to mark any of our losses. But as this month drew closer, I kept rolling around the idea of finding an appropriate ritual. Only, here we are, and I still don’t know what, if anything, would feel right.
In the years I’ve been writing and reading about pregnancy loss, I’ve built up a catalogue of possible options.
Choosing jewellery, keepsakes, lighting candles, buying flowers, precious or painted stones, getting a tattoo, planting trees or other plants that, hopefully, will return year after year, on a birthday or a due-date month.
I’ve seriously considered almost all of these. But, eventually, the ideas meet with my own resistance.
Actual objects risk reminding me only of what is missing: in this way, ornaments and jewellery feel too much of a physical presence and too flimsy, at the same time.
As a gardener, I like the idea of planting something. But, as a gardener, I also know you shouldn’t get too attached to what you grow. You are always at the mercy of the weather, timing, and pests. And I don’t know if I want to put my remembrance in the lap of the slugs.
Sometimes, I wonder if my resistance is to doing anything at all. I never want to feel as though I’m living out a pale imitation of a better, alternate version of my life, perpetually tracing what I should have been doing, yearning for the things that didn’t happen (which was exactly how I did feel, after our first miscarriage).
Does marking a particular date risk making that other shadow-life too solid, too present? Is the better way simply to let the weeds of life grow up and over that other path, obscuring where it once led?
I recently learned of this book via the matrescence coach and therapist
and immediately made a note to order it, so I don’t think my search for a ritual is over, just yet.It’s Valentine’s Day, as I’m preparing this newsletter for you. And I guess what I’m really asking through these questions about possible rituals, is how do I love this pregnancy that was – and then wasn’t?
How do you show this kind of love?
How do I make space for it, both in my own heart, and in the world?
It’s a particular kind of love, the love you feel for a nascent pregnancy. It’s a love that is not so much unrequited, as unrealised.
It’s the love of an idea; a possibility. In this sense, it’s immaculate in the way only an imagined future can be. It contains the kind of soft-focus affection you might have for a favourite daydream.
But it also carries the bite of rejection. As with a first love denied, you can feel unseen and envious, wondering why it comes so easily to other people: the cards and flowers and felicitations kind of love.
Maybe I will plant something that blooms in February. (Though what? What blooms in February?)
Or maybe I will go out and buy a dozen red roses, or a Valentine’s bouquet, all scarlets, flamingo pinks, and clouds of baby’s breath.
Maybe I’ll do this, because it is the least appropriate ritual I can think of: the gaudiest, most obvious symbol of love and how we show it. Maybe I’ll appropriate this inappropriate ritual, for this love whose place in the world is a lot more tenuous.
Or maybe I won’t.
This resonates with me so much. I had a miscarriage in February 2021, and I spent weeks looking for the “perfect” thing as a memorial. I think my brain needed something to latch on to, but I must have spent 300 hours on Etsy and Google considering all of the things you mention here. Nothing felt right. Eventually (without knowing of my search), my MIL gifted me a little crystal bear holding forget-me-nots, something I never would have picked for myself, but it allowed me to stop searching.
My grandfather died year before last and he was a super gardener. His garden won awards and everything. One of the last times I saw him was the summer before, before cancer took over. I have a picture of him standing with pride against one of those mammoth sunflowers. It’s head was bigger than his. At his funeral my dad gave out sunflower seeds to everyone (in october) and people were encouraged to plant them the next spring and share with the rest of the family how they got on. It was really lovely seeing them all the following summer in pictures or reality. It was like a communal ritual which felt like a lovely way to remember him by. I like to think too that it will have encouraged some into a love of gardening as well.