This post is from Darcy’s blog, 9/2012

“He ripped it!” she yelled, holding her new shirt out to me, a look of horror on her face. Cade came running down the stairs, wailing even harder. I pressed my lips together, knowing that no matter the grievous act that Cade had just committed, I would have to comfort him more. I whispered a quick prayer for the thousandth time that his future wife will not be a woman well versed in the art of the guilt treatment. If so, that boy is toast.

After they both calmed down, I was able to hear the highlights of the story. He was trying to be funny . . . he put on her new, sheer, sparkly Justice top . . . did a few spastic break dancing moves . . . and proceeded to rip it straight down the seam on the right side. It was gaping open. An ugly polyester wound.

After a quick reminder to Lila about how even break dancing brothers deserve grace sometimes, I told them that I was pretty sure I could mend it.

Later, when the house was quiet, I lugged my sewing machine upstairs and got started. I had to re-thread since Lila’s shirt was mostly black and the thread that was in the machine was white, the thread I had used so very, very long ago, or so it seemed, to sew the crib sheets for Darcy’s nursery. I closed my eyes as a wave of pain washed over me.

Oh, sweet baby. Mama laughingly scolded you as I sewed those sheets, needing to be steady, and instead jolting at your strong kicks from within.

As I set up the sewing machine, my mind wandered to my most recent therapy session. It had been a five kleenex affair. Usually, I take one tissue at the start and use it throughout the hour to dab my eyes, but this one had required a bit more mopping up.

I told my doctor that I felt like I was doing well overall. I recalled that in the beginning of my grief, I had blankly wondered if I would ever be interested in anything again. Would I ever be interested in the plot of a television show, or in seeing a movie, or in picking out new paint colors? I can say now, that I can and I have. So it’s good to be able to look back and see a specific improvement. I can laugh with friends and enjoy a glass of wine and that’s a good thing. I can watch a movie and read a book. In fact, books tend to be my escape in almost an excessive way. I read one after the other, literally. Especially now that I have a Kindle and obtaining a new one, even at ten at night, is possible. “Books are my drug of choice.” I laughed.

The threading done, I lined up the shirt under the needle.

“The thing is,” I had continued, “I can go for so long without a real Darcy outlet and then it starts with me feeling really blue and before you know it, I’m having a complete, convulsing tear-fest on the elliptical machine. Big, wracking sobs that make Lila and Cade rush into the room and then quietly stand to the side, whispering to each other about how I’m basically losing my mind.” I paused. “I guess there’s just not as many opportunities to talk with people about her anymore and so it builds up to a point where it finally breaks me.”

“People don’t know how much time you still spend with her, do they?” she asked quietly.

I began sewing, the needle piercing the delicate fabric, even as it repaired.

“Some do,” I muttered, “but not everyone.” I paused and she waited. “It’s hard for me to spend time with the people who I feel didn’t acknowledge the loss with me in the beginning and I feel badly about that because I don’t know if it’s fair.” I recounted a story for her about some people I work with who knew my story but had never said a word to me about Darcy, despite the fact that I had spent time with them very shortly after we lost her. I still avoided them.

I fed the fabric very slowly through my fingers, careful that I wasn’t damaging it more than it already was.

“What I think you have to try to realize is that people are really, really bad with death,” she said. “They simply don’t know what to do and so they do nothing. But I would be willing to bet you anything, that that was almost the only thing on their minds when they spent time with you.”

My hands continued on their task, almost as if they had no need of my mind to guide them.

With my doctor’s gentle words, I recalled feeling a small part of my heart mend, finding forgiveness for that which had torn me.

“I know,” I had said quietly. “Yes, I guess I do know that. I remember that happening when my dad died. When I came back to work, people I thought were my good friends would see me coming down the hallway and turn and go in the other direction, rather than face me. I remember thinking how bizarre it was, but I guess people’s reactions then didn’t hurt as much as it hurts now with Darcy. It just . . . perplexed me then.”

“Why does it hurt so much more now?” she had asked quietly, looking into my eyes.

I had paused. “Well,” I started slowly, “I guess for the obvious reason that he was my dad and she was my child, but also . . .” I trailed off as the tears gathered and I tried to put words to my feelings. “No one could deny my father’s existence in this world whether they acknowledged him or not. He paid bills, impacted lives, had a child . . .” The tears were falling faster now. “But with Darcy, she was a baby, and so there’s no tangible proof of her existence other than the urn on my dresser and a few photographs. The only thing I have of her impact on the world are the emotions people feel for her and for us, and the words that are spoken about her.” I was crying openly now.

I bit my fingernail, recalling another painful memory. “Kevin and I went out to dinner the other night,” I said, “and toward the end of our meal, a woman walked in with a very small baby in a sling and sat down at a table directly in front of me. I had nowhere else to look, and even when I tried, my eyes kept turning back to that small bundle on her chest.” The tears were coming quickly now and my voice cracked. “Kevin had seen her too and he took my hand across the table and said, ‘Honey, you’re okay, this is your challenge. You’re ok.'” “But I don’t need a challenge,” I had choked out to my doctor, hiccuping and breathless with hurt. “Haven’t I had enough of a challenge?” I said, a small, hysterical sounding laugh bubbling up from my throat. “Don’t I deserve the understanding that I need to flee that situation? It just hurts too much! AND,” I continued, on a sputtering, hiccuping, roll now, “seeing other babies doesn’t hurt me because I want that baby. I want my baby. I want Darcy. Other babies are just a painful reminder of what I didn’t get! I see that on TV dramas sometimes, the crazed woman who lost her own baby, attacking some poor, pregnant woman and stealing her baby to raise as a replacement for the infant she lost—it’s a low blow to mothers everywhere who have lost a baby and completely inaccurate.” I put my head in my hands, giving in to the wracking sobs, the consuming pain.

I was almost at the end of the seam now and my foot slowed on the pedal, re-inforcing at the end in a steady, back, forth, back, forth with the needle so that after all my work, the thread wouldn’t unravel. It was strong now in the weakest spot.

“Kevin recognized your pain before you even had to utter a word though,” Dr. Fox said. “His hand and his words were his way of caring for you, of comforting you. He knew . . . he knew. Before you even told him.”

I stopped crying, letting my breath return to normal, and quietly considered what she said. She was right. When others see my pain without me having to broadcast it, it’s comforting in the most profound way. We all have pain. But somehow when other people see it and let us know they see US, the us right down to our broken places, it’s a kind of healing that we so desperately long for. I said a silent word of thanks to God for putting those people in my life. They are helping to mend my gaping heart wound.

I held up the shirt, inspecting my job. I noticed that although it was mended, and even perhaps stronger than before, for I had used care and strong thread, the needle had left tiny holes in the delicate fabric—nothing that anyone else would see, but there nonetheless. And those tiny holes, the places where the sharp needle had plunged, that’s where the light shone through.

I walked upstairs and kissed my four sleeping children on their peaceful heads. I walked to my bedroom and looked out the window up at the night sky. “Goodnight, Darcy Rose,” I whispered. In that moment, feeling peace.