Shannon Gibney > Quotes

“My journey as a mother has been long, continues to be long. When you have seven living on this side and seven waiting on the other side, either place feels like it could be home.”
― Shannon Gibney, What God Is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color

“A friend tells me that the experiences we have in other countries are untranslatable. I think this also applies to miscarriage. It is hard to describe what it’s like to lose someone I never saw outside of my body, never held, never grew to know or love, but whom I felt intimately attached to and who was already connected to my husband and son. As a Korean adoptee, raised in a white family, I longed to have babies that were related to me. I could only imagine what it would be like to finally look at another person’s face and see myself reflected back. When I miscarried, I experienced yet another loss of a person who was a part of me. It is challenging to articulate and impossible to find words in any language to describe what it’s like to long for a family that was supposed to be, when I am grateful for and fiercely love the family I have. It is the incompleteness that I struggle with. It is missing someone I never knew, but whom I wanted desperately to be a part of my life.”
― Shannon Gibney, What God Is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color