The toughest part of my story was acknowledging and working through the unresolved grief of childlessness.
This didn’t happen until I had reached that awful time of realising that I was never going to have children. As someone who is childless by circumstance, there was never one moment, or a single diagnosis or the physical loss of a pregnancy to mark that realisation. I just ran out of time and opportunities to have a child.
I thought I was doing ok, then I gradually found out I wasn’t. I had buried the trauma of loss in years of getting on with life; but the shame and guilt and feelings of failure hadn’t gone away, they were just there, smothering me with a lingering sadness that I shared with no-one.
The trouble was my children were real – well they were to me. They had existed in my mind for as long as I can remember. From childhood play with baby dolls, to cutting out images of my imaginary family from catalogues to childish conversations about how many children I would have and onto planning for real children with my then husband.
I knew their names. They were Charlotte and Isaac. They were never conceived, never carried inside me and yet I loved them and lost them.
It was a wonderful counsellor who helped me to realise this, and to understand that any loss must be grieved to allow you to move forwards. We talked about what sort of parent I would have been to Charlotte and Isaac, what I would have shown them and taught them, the places we would have gone and things we would have done. I could never picture their faces, but I could feel a sense of them, usually a presence outside, walking alongside me.
I felt guilty that I had failed to give them life, worried that they were out there, lost in some other sort of world, waiting to be born.
My counsellor gently suggested that perhaps I needed to say goodbye to Charlotte and Isaac, that by grieving their loss I could begin to recover from the trauma and let go of the weight of sadness and guilt.
I created my own goodbye ritual. I made origami butterflies which sat by a window for a few days until I burned them in my garden and watched the little pieces of paper drift away on the breeze. I wrote a poem for Charlotte and Isaac, which I’ve never shared with anyone until now.
The poem put my thoughts and feelings into words. The butterflies let me say goodbye as I watched my children float away. These days the overbearing sadness has gone, but whenever a butterfly lands nearby, there is a sense that maybe Charlotte and Isaac have called by to let me know they are ok.
For Charlotte and Isaac
Two parts of me that I will never know
Tiny souls, lost in a stream of sadness
Unseen but heartfelt, loved but without love
Unable to imagine your faces
So sorry that I wasn't real for you.
Song words speak my feelings, breaking my heart
"I will always love you"... "tiny dancers"
"Moon River drifters... off to see the world."
I wonder are you afraid, lost, alone
without me? Take good care of each other.
So much time and love to share - not wasted
just shifted to other hearts, different ways
But still the longing to have shared with you
The beauty of the world, flowers, creatures
To travel to places known or unseen
To learn and discover, wonder and love.
Little non-lives, floating, waiting to be.
Drifting unknown, potential unfulfilled
Never destined to have a chance of life
Or to know how precious you would have been.
Sarah Bradley