Mourning the Child Who Didn't Die

When a wife loses a husband, she is called a widow. When a husband loses a wife, he is called a widower. When a child loses his parents, he is called an orphan. When a parent loses a child, there is no word for that... it is simply that awful. 

Before we lost Will, I truly could not imagine the pain someone goes through when dealing with the loss of a child. The moment he was ripped away from us in some ways felt so horrific that it seemed as if he had died. The loss felt so shocking, so devastating, and so, so incredibly lonely. We clung to each other because it felt like nobody else could possibly understand.

For several months we allowed ourselves to believe he may be returned to us. We made and broke plans based on this idea... 

"We can't do that... what if Will is back with us then?" 

"Oh, we need to make sure this is finished so when Will comes back, we will be prepared." 

We sealed his room up tightly like a time capsule, ready for him to be back at any moment. For months and months we lived this way, until finally... we didn't. 

Somewhere along the line we realized how hard it is to grieve the loss of a child who didn't die. Our son is still walking and talking and moving and breathing somewhere in this big wide world. For that, we are lucky. We know he is out there... though we cannot see him. And, yet... to us,  it feels like he is every bit as gone as if we had truly lost him. 

We mourn... we grieve.... we cry as if we are bereaved parents, because in some ways we are. 

We mourn the life he may never have. 

We grieve the love he lost.

We cry for the grief he experienced without anyone to comfort him.

In our adoption classes, they never covered how deeply this grief would cut. They never talked about how hard it would be to lose your child. But, here we are nearly 9 months later, and the wound is still bleeding and bleeding with no end in sight. 

In some ways, the hope we once had that he may come back to us is fleeting. We know that we may never see him again. We've stopped referring to his room as "Will's room" and started referring to it as "the baby's room." We cleaned out and donated his things. We've taken down family photos and learned to live life again with just the two of us.

There will come a day soon where he will have been without us for more time than he was with us, and in some ways that's very hard. 

We will never give up fighting for Will. We will never forget him or the impact he had on our lives.

Adopting another child will never change that.

Going through a loss of this magnitude was not something we expected would happen in the first few years of our marriage. Dealing with infertility and miscarriages on top of this loss was certainly not in our plans, as well. We definitely believed we'd have a child... maybe two or three... by this time in our lives. And, yet... here we are. 

We just pray that whatever life Will leads that he feels happy and fulfilled.

Losing Will has not taken away the desire we had to become parents. In fact, having him increased that desire ten fold. Having Will helped us realize that it is not biology that creates a family. It's love. 

Love makes a family.

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