On pain, loss and beauty

It has been almost three years since I started the parenting journey. Lots of careful playing to assure we were in the best place we could to love and care for this growing idea of a child. It has been a rewarding and excruciating process. It started with the illusion of a new life growing. A life that was not meant to be. The pain of knowing that you have lost something so deep that you could never, ever, forget. Then, the process of picking up the pieces together and forge a new you, a new us, ready to get back on the horse again.

A miscarriage is a deep lost. In this western culture where lost means failure, there is too much secrecy about it and as a result, too much pain. Pain that many of us have endured in the darkness of our homes, in the quiet nights of our bedrooms. For heterosexual, cis men like me, it is a very lonely experience. In the heavy days of the winter season when I carried around the baggage of my sadness, women were always there for me. I learned about their painful experiences and journeys as well. I also learned that I did not want others, especially men, to brush this off like light snow in the ground. So far, I have kept my word.

I look at my beautiful toddler and I cannot imagine life without him. The gift of reviving childhood through the eyes of someone else that you love as you thought it was not possible. I look at him and I remind myself that there would not have been him without that painful loss. I would have been a different parent to a different kid. A different life.

I sat this quiet winter morning with the intention to write some reflections about care and seeking to be a feminist parent, a feminist man. Through the window of the second-floor apartment, I see snow is falling again in a mesmerizing way. Nature is all around reminding us of the beauty of life if we want to pay attention or not.

In pain and loss, there is also beauty. It teaches us about the depths of our emotions, the clarity that emerges out of darkness. As a parent, I have learned to grieve every single day. I lost myself in books and stuffed animals and songs that I thought were going to be with us forever. I fought to find shoes and sweaters and socks in an anthropological daily ritual. I washed bottles and pump parts. I had a carrier that became a second skin, where I placed my baby and swayed rhythmically standing on the foyer of our house. Children change faster than we want, that we would like.

Sometimes, I write because it helps me to articulate and make sense of my own feelings. Sometimes, because I want to document my journey and share it with others. Today, it feels like I just need to share this because someone else might need it.  Sending you all love, strengthen and solidarity.