We long and yearn for the same noise and crying jags that so many other people fret about at 3 am but all we hear is silence. Our silence is broken by our tears and the quiet sound of our own hearts breaking all over again. There is nothing like that silence when you know it should be being broken by soft breathing in a bassinet next to you or by the baby waking up to eat. We hear it in the middle of the day when there is a lull in the roar from kids playing and screaming over their toys. We don't hear the baby waking up at inopportune times and needing to be held. We don't hear anything but normal everyday sounds of people happily eating their lunch and the silence is so loud we feel the urge to scream just to reassure ourselves that it will be okay.
We have the month of October to reassure ourselves that we are collectively not forgotten but we apparently don't have a pertinent bandwagon to join and except for those who have been affected directly, it's completely silent. Social media is always full of people with bandwagons, but it seems that the vast majority are more worked up about other causes than helping us break our silence. So in our silence, we loudly and painfully hear the silence from our friends and relatives.
Some days we feel beaten down by the silence and others we bravely stand up and remember out loud. But the silence remains like the sound of a snowflake falling onto a scrap of plush fabric. We scream from the bottom of a canyon and there is no answering echo to make us feel less alone. We talk and we write and we blog and our words hang in mid air or lay lifeless on a piece of paper or on the wallpaper of our blog and they go unnoticed by the vast majority who tired of hearing or scrolling past our words years ago.
I'm not asking for people to jump up and haul out their old worn out copy of Tried And True Cliches And Platitudes but I am asking that you speak into our silence. Let us hear something other than our own recriminations about what we could have or should have or would have done if we had known XYZ. It can be as simple as saying, "I remember too." Remember that we had babies we loved and lost. Remember that we never forget. Remember that our babies have names. Remember that they were born. Remember that they have birthdays and death days and days we found out they were gone. Remember that we loved them and that this is why we are trying to break the deafening silence we live in every day of our lives.
Ask us how we are doing and wait for the real answer. Ask us about our pregnancy and listen even when it involves uncomfortable and painful answers. Let us talk about how we feel without bringing your past, present, and future into it. Let us feel our feelings and don't tell us we are wrong for dealing how we are dealing.
I'm saying this because it is such a standard response to give your knee jerk reaction to hearing something painful or something you don't like. But remember that not everybody handles things the same way because everybody is different. My way isn't wrong because you couldn't do what I'm doing. Your way isn't wrong because I'm not doing what you're doing. I'm me, you're you, and it's as simple as that. The only time it gets complicated is when you project or try to stifle real feelings that are being felt. It's the greatest cause for the deafening silence that I and millions of others suffer through on a daily basis.
So help us break the silence. Show us the same amount of support you would want for your own cause if you had one. Let's all join our voices and speak into the world... because, really. The silence does get rather deafening for us. Especially in October.
I hear you.... hugs!
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