It’s getting really late on a Friday night. My eyes are shot from hours and hours spent on a screen today, this week, this past year. I don’t know what made me come here, so late, when I’d just decided I could not read a single other application file, but for some reason I did come here and for the last hour I’ve just been reading random posts. Posts from 9 years ago, 8 years ago, 6 years ago. Posts from every year. Reading all the comments. All those beautiful, smart, kind, supportive, loving, angry-at-all-the-right-times, holding-each-other-up comments. And god, how I miss it. The connection. The friendship. The feeling that we all understood each other and that there was always someone there to call back through the long night at you: “You’re not crazy.” “We know.” “She was beautiful.” “She shouldn’t have died.”
We were so good to each other. We took such good care. There were women here who I knew. Women who knew me better than most of my family and ‘in real life’ friends. Women I still think of, and wonder about, and hope the best for. Reading all those comments again, I remember the stories, the care we gave each other, the total acceptance of all the ugly, rage-y, necessary parts of grief, the love we spread round when someone needed it, and when didn’t someone need it? The internet really has been good for something.
No one reads here anymore (why would they when I don’t actually write haha) but just in case you were here back then and you ever come back, please know how much I miss you, how much you’ve meant to me, how much I needed you, how grateful I am for all we shared in this space that feels almost sacred to me now. A space she occupied when she could occupy no other. A space we made together, holding each other up. Thank you.
March is for daffodils... 
I still come back here.
Anja is still very much in my heart and so are you.
Catherine W. and I talk about that group of people, that time, as a graduating class. Unfortunately, the classes go on and on and on with new members all the time. Whenever I hear of someone forced into the long procession, a stab to my heart says — it never stops. Another person feeling what no parent should ever have to feel. Another day, another year, another nightmare.
And the graduation – of the class back when we “knew” it – isn’t to a life where the pain is over. More to a place where the pain has, perhaps, run out of things to say and gone underground. Not because there IS nothing left to say. Maybe because words fail to speak the unspeakable. Or exhaustion takes over.
Would those women be surprised to hear how much of them I carry with me? How often I think of them? Their children, their stories, their insights, their pain. How I still – always – associate Anja with the red earth of the place I live. How each person’s children have particular memories and stories associated, only, with them – how their names are still, individually, on my heart. And their mother’s names every bit as much.
That constellation surrounding GiTW from 2007 to…2015? It’s hard to know exact beginnings or endings. There are no hard dates. I know that class, but not its specific graduation date. Silence seeped in and one day it was gone.
It was a place like none other. A place I long to return to which is never coming back. A place I wish had never been, because no children had ever died. But one of the most important, meaningful, purposeful, unforgettable places I ever was.
I have not forgotten Anja and I have not forgotten you. I am still missing her place in the world. She will always matter to me.
When you write, I will always read. I am sad Anja is not here. I know she should be.
Cathy in Missouri
Dear Cathy. It’s so good to hear your voice. I like the image of a graduating class. I’m also carrying so much of those women and their babies with me, remembering, holding space. How lucky we’ve been to have this connection and this care. Thanks for all your words over the years. A notification popped up on my phone – comment from CiM and it was just a rush of memory, friendship, community, care. Thank you.
I am here. ❤️ I was here then too. ❤️. I’ll remember baby cheeses with you and meet her one day in heaven with my own girl.
Baby Cheeses. I love that we remember these things with each other, after all these years. Eva and you, Em, are absolutely among those I carry with me. I can see her gorgeous face! Sending love.
Not to “talk too much” in this space – but oh, yes. When I saw your name, Em, the first thing I pictured was Eva’s beautiful little face. It was, just like MIFD said above, a rush of memory. I have never forgotten you and your family, either. I am so glad you spoke up here.
CiM
I’m still here. As CiM says, we ‘talk’ about those days, that grief, even now. I read every post but I don’t comment as much as I used to. I don’t go back to GiTW that often but I do come here.
My words all just dried up. I’m sorry about that.
I hope I took care of you and Anja. I know you took care of me.
I am on the dreaded social media if you ever wanted to join some of us from those days?
Waves at Em, I remember you and Eva too.
And Catherine, I couldn’t agree more with MIFD. Yes – a guide, a caretaker, a helper. You’ve made more of a difference for me than you will ever guess.
It’s so interesting how penetrating and lasting these important words are, even years after they’ve been written. And I mean from everyone – from EVERY person who shared their heart and pain and wrote their life and loss out where the world could read it.
I heard recently from a friend who stopped blogging years ago – yet got a message THIS week from someone reading a post she wrote in 2013. The reader was so moved she reached out to say she felt the post had saved her life. My friend marveled that anyone would care what she wrote in 2013, let alone find it a lifeline.
I was not surprised at all. I know what it is to have your life saved by “strangers” who don’t even know they’re doing it.
And it’s a horrible economy, one which costs the writers endless suffering — while offering strength and hope and less alone-ness to readers even years afterwards. So beautiful AND so horrible.
And I’m never sure which is the stronger, although I’ve sometimes dreamed of a button I could push, where no one’s child ever, ever died. I wouldn’t hesitate for a second if I had such a thing. Not for all the meaningful writing in the world.
CiM
I know that feeling, Catherine, of words drying up. Mine mostly have, too. I find writing almost the only way to connect to Anja and it makes me sad when even that form of connection fails. You really, really did take care of me and Anja, Catherine. You were a guide for me, and for so many others, I know. Your words helped immensely. I hope you are all well. I’m on some of the dreaded social media and would be interested in connecting.
I recently logged back into my blog (not to write – to see if I even COULD log back in) and find myself going back to my old reading list clicking on posts that are somewhat new, like this, and feeling the tug for that old, but never forgotten part of life – when grief and internet friends and sharing were so.damn.necessary. It was a treat to find this entry of yours and know that I hope you are well and stumbling upon this post was such a gift – especially as I approach 11 (eleven!?) years since my Cale was stillborn.
Jen, yes. Yes, yes, yes to ALL of this.
I miss you & those days, though so painful & raw, too. Thank god for you (& Anja); you got me through the roughest part of life.