There is a shape in my life where a child should be and my body keeps tripping over it. I still count months the way I counted them before everything stopped. I do not know where to put love when there is no first birthday to aim at. Everyone wanted to reassure me about later and I was only grieving this one life. It is such a specific pain to have no public memory for someone private and permanent inside you. The body does not forget just because the paperwork was brief. I keep imagining milestones for someone who never got to have one. This grief has no small talk version.
For my son