Silence

We all have our own notions of grief. Prior to losing Holly, I can honestly say that I had never experienced it. Grief isn't something which is talked about much, until it happens. I expected sadness and pain but I didn't expect the silence. 
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My grief feels like silence and it has done ever since this all began. Scans filled with silence and silent car journeys between my husband and I. Silent tears as my gut instinct told me Holly would never survive upon hearing her diagnosis.  

Silence when Holly was born. Where were her cries? Where was the excitement? Where were the cries of joy? Silence when I cradled her in my arms and cocooned my body around her basket when I was no longer able to hold her. Silence when we left the hospital with just a memory box. 

Silence when we registered her birth and death, silence when we sat in the funeral home picking out her coffin and silence when I kissed her goodbye for the last time. Silence at the crematorium and silence where there should be two babies in the house, not one. Memories of Holly filled with silence.

Just so much silence.

There can be as much love around you as you could possibly ask for when you lose a baby. There can be so much love, sympathies and well wishes but it doesn't stop the silence. It's a silence which you so desperately want to be filled but it cant, so instead the empty silence travels through your universe with no destination and no signs of halting. Just a constant hurtling comet of silence. 

Some days the silence is so loud. It is so loud that it is consuming and exhausting. Its an ear shrieking, high pitched silence with nowhere to go and so it just reverberates inside you, aching and hurting. An unwanted silence, a much present emptiness.

Some days the silence likes to play. It will hide and hide well. Your day is filled with much welcomed noise and distractions. And then you pause and wonder where this relief has come from but block out that thought as if scared you might suddenly jinx it into showing itself. But you needn't worry because it does, eventually. 
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People can tell you that you aren't alone. After all, you are not the first to lose a baby and you wont be the last. And whilst it can bring some comfort to hear the support, every loss is different as is the grief. I have learn't that there can be no expectations in grief as my silence wont reflect someone else's loss. There quite simply, is no normal. 

I don't like my silence but it is my personal reminder of Holly, as if I could ever forget. And I would always chose having it over having never 'had' my Holly. I think my silence is really just my love for her after all.

​But I do wish I could chose to have Holly here and banish the silence all together.