The Nursery

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The nursery is freshly painted, the crib empty. Her due date has become the birthday never to be. She’ll never know whether her baby was a boy or a girl. Baby? It wasn’t a baby, they’ve told her. It! She wanted to scream, “My baby is not an ‘it’!” My baby is not. My baby . . . not.

“It would have been worse if you’d lost a child you had birthed, gotten to know, and loved.” Worse. So, I could be hurt even more. If this is what it feels like to hurt less, I so glad it isn’t worse. Just so damn glad!

“You can try again. Maybe God just wasn’t ready for you to have a baby yet. Maybe you needed to learn something first. Maybe the child you do have will be even more precious to you, and you’ll be better parents.”

“Maybe.” Am I so deficient that I wouldn’t have been able to love the child I wanted so much? Am I not enough to be a mother?

“Maybe God . . . .” She believes in God. Not just in God’s existence. She trusts God, counts on God, even tries to love God. Did God do this to her? Why do people have babies they don’t want? Why do some go for abortions? Is she supposed to be learning something from this? Please, don’t let me turn bitter. Please don’t let.

She had a due date. Now that date will not be a birthday, but she knows she’ll never get it out of her mind, off her mental calendar. As long as she lives, it will be the would-have-been birthday. No candles, no cakes, no parties. Tears.

Isn’t the death of expectation and promise worthy of grief? Are her arms less empty for never having held her child?

She closes the nursery door, but it won’t close. Not really.