Emma Hansen > Quotes

“Grief doesn't ever really leave. It becomes a part of your story, but it doesn't have to define it.”
― Emma Hansen

“I never know when I'll sense Reid's presence. It isn't in a toothbrush left behind or a frequently worn item of clothing. It's in the absences that I feel him most. It's everywhere that I had imagined he'd one day be.
For me, he is more than a body. I knew the soul, not the flesh. When I look at photos of him, I miss him, but not in the same way I miss him when I look at photos of myself pregnant.
He is a feeling. He is a feeling more than anything because of the simple fact that he died before he was born. Because he was stillborn. He is not defined by this, but the definition matters. I was meant to be his portal, the one that would lead him from his world into ours, but he left for another world, one altogether foreign to me.”
― Emma Hansen, Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood

“I always thought, somehow, that death would follow the rules. This was supposed to be a beginning; now we are at an end.”
― Emma Hansen, Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood

“What happens when the order of birth and death are disrupted? Stillbirth goes against the way most people think about life and death, and the timeline in which they occur. It's unsettling.

When death takes a life before birth, is it a life? I don't know. I don't think there will ever be an answer that feels certain, or one that is right for everyone. But right here, right now, I wonder, is it really just a single breath of air that creates a life? And the absence of it that makes a death?”
― Emma Hansen, Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood

“When a baby dies before they have a chance to create their own story, I think one of the biggest fears parents have is that they will disappear, be forgotten. It's up to those who knew them to spread their legacy, should that be something that's in their hearts to do.”
― Emma Hansen, Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood

“If this mother-child relationship, this identity, is ingrained in us at a genetic level, I just can't believe that death would simply sever it. Death wouldn't change anything at all. Except that one of us is here and the other there, and though the circumstances are altered, the connection will never be. The mother will always remain a mother; the child, her child.”
― Emma Hansen, Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood

“But I can't figure out how to keep Reid alive in my heart without the ache. Will it always be like this? I have to believe it will get better. But then, do I want it to? Because when it gets better, what will be lost in the process? Already, I know that it will come with a price.”
― Emma Hansen, Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood

“Though he died before anyone got to know him, he still made an impact, is still loved, and that many are grieving his death. We are not alone in this loss.”
― Emma Hansen, Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood

“Sometimes it's necessary to take a break from the titles we identify with, and sometimes there's unparalleled beauty in sharing the same identity with another. Something changes when another person is able to validate your pain.”
― Emma Hansen, Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood