If I’d never shared their names

In honor of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, I want to share this poem I wrote a few weeks ago after the three year anniversary of our loss.

Sometimes I think back to my pre-loss opinions, that “stuff like this happens and you move on” and the foolish idea I had early on that we would basically “keep it to ourselves” …and then I look at where I am now, and wondered if maybe, at three years,  I’d be more “over it” if I’d followed conventional (old, faulty) thinking and just kept quiet and ‘put it behind me’…

That was my thought when I sat down to write this poem, which practically fell out of me. But oddly, the idea that that would have been a better way to deal with it, I honestly couldn’t even connect enough words to express that thought, because it is so unrealistic.

The poem isn’t perfect. I’m nobody’s poet. And it might have echoes of Dr. Seuss in it’s rhythms, but whatever.

If you like it and it means something to you, please let me know.

I wonder how it’d be different

I wonder how it’d be different if I hadn’t shared their names
If I’d kept them to myself and I hadn’t shared my pain
I wonder how it’d be different if I’d kept them to myself
If I’d hid all of my sorrow and I’d never asked for help.

Now at three years later would I still think of them daily
Would I see them in the little things
and hear their names in passing winds.

How would things be different If I’d never Shared their names?

Would the word “twins” make me cringe inside the way I do today.
Or would it be more obvious and would my tears betray
Or maybe it’d be different, I’d hardly think of them myself.
They’d be locked up safe inside of me if I’d never asked for help.

People would have forgotten, or they’d speak in whispered tone,
about the girl I once was, before my broken home.

At least this way I love them in the best way that I know.
To put my heart out on the line so maybe I can show
These losses they don’t disappear and there’s pain inside our hearts
And there’s no harm in acknowledging these slightly broken parts.

They make us strong, they make us proud they make us who we are.
They’re a symbol of the love we have and like a badge or scar
It is my choice to show the world this love I have inside
for the gift I have that changed my life, despite the tears I cried.

How would things be different If I’d never Shared their names?

-Tova Gold

Their Hand Painted Grave Markers.

Love & Muchness, Tova


7 Replies to “If I’d never shared their names”

  1. Tine

    Absolutely beautiful Tova, so honest and if you hadn’t shared their names, I wouldn’t know you. And it is definitely my privilege to know you <3

    Reply
    • Tova Gold Post author

      I actually. at first, was embarrassed about their names and didn’t even share it with the jewish burial society when they asked if we wanted to name them. They were buried as “fetus a and fetus b” And then, it took me about 2.5 years before I could stop writing that they were “nicknames.” – though they were.
      xox

      Reply
  2. Lynette Revilla

    What a beautiful poem and tribute to your baby girls, Daisy & Sunshine.
    Thank you for ‘Sharing Thier Names’ <3 <3

    Reply
  3. Dennel

    Tova, your poem is beautiful. Thank you, for sharing their names, and sharing your heart with all of us.

    I love the names. <3 <3

    Reply
  4. bumpkin

    i can not express how much i can relate to the feelings in this poem. i myself am approaching year 2 since my loss, but i can not bring myself to speak my childs name or acknowledge any of it…i caint figure it out, i dont know whats right or wrong to feel or say or do. its like im wrong regardless of which direction i try to go.

    Reply
    • Tova Gold Post author

      You do know. You’re just not listening to your own voice, because it’s being drowned out by what you think will be other people’s response. Honestly, there is nothing to figure out because there is no right or wrong. You need to do what feels right for you and I cannot tell you if or how to deal with it, but if you’re feeling mentally or emotionally tortured by this detail, that is a likely sign that what you are doing isn’t working for you. You do not have to ‘commit’ to being “one of those people” who talks about it too much just because you mention it once. You can mention it in a really small way and just gauge how that makes you feel. If it feels a bit like exhaling then you’ll know you’re on the right path. That’s what it felt like for me. xox

      Reply

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