My Journey with a Sparrow
July of 2016 brought the day I’d been waiting for my entire life:
the day I found out I was pregnant.
If you’d met 4-year-old me and asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would’ve said, “A stay-at-home mom.” And as I aged, my answer to that question never changed. As soon as I learned to write, I carved “Jason and Jennifer” into the wooden beams of my playhouse; because, unlike my peers who would have carved the names of the boys they liked, I was carving the names I’d picked for my future children. Through my childhood and teen years, and into my young adulthood, I collected my favorite names on a list and paired them with my favorite middle names. When my friends were dreamily doodling in their notebooks:
“Mrs. Sarah Timberlake” and “Mrs. Anna Gosling,”
I was dreamily doodling greetings from my future family (with at least four children—two boys, two girls—bearing my favorite names in that moment)…
“Merry Christmas from [my crush’s name] & Wren,
and Kellan, River, Jackson, & Shiloh”
I always felt like I was just biding my time until I became a mother. When I had to find a job in the meantime, I made my career about children— raising children was the only thing I wanted to do. So I figured, why not get some great practice in while I’m waiting for my own?
When I was 21 and teaching the One-Year-Olds Room at a daycare center, there was a little one in my class, Tati, who captured my heart. Every morning, her mother was waiting in the parking lot for the teachers to open the center so she could drop off Tati. And every evening, Tati was the last child to get picked up; Mom would show up 15 minutes after closing time (talking on her cell phone), scoop up her daughter without so much as a “hello,” absent-mindedly drop her in the backseat, and drive off—still on her phone. I would go home every night, lay on my couch, and cry myself to sleep there— wrestling with the reality that I spent more time with Tati than her own mother did; and tortured by the question, “why is that woman allowed to raise a child, but I’m not??”
I had determined long ago that I would be a stay-at-home mother when I had children; if all I wanted to do was raise children, that was all I was going to do. So I knew I wanted to have my “ducks in a row” before I made the decision to become a mother.
After my husband and I had been married for one year, we agreed it was the right time to start our family. I got pregnant immediately. My body was just as on-board as my heart was! Coming to terms with my pregnancy, I couldn’t stop laughing; I was so full of joy, I literally couldn’t contain it. I was finally carrying my first child! After 26 years of waiting, I WAS FINALLY A MOM!
I started my Baby Registry on Amazon. I wrote a cute little poem for each set of grandparents-to-be and made them each their own announcement-kit. I planned adorable announcements for our extended families at the upcoming Labor Day picnics…
— — —
At 2am on September 2, 2016, I found myself in the emergency room, in a great deal of pain and confusion. In my soul, I knew what was happening. I was bleeding too much to be oblivious to it.
The ER doctor gave me the official news, and closed the curtains behind him as he left. I shed some silent tears. I pulled myself together, hugged and thanked my parents for coming to the hospital to meet us, and got in our car to go home. I was in such severe shock, I even went in to work at 8am. In a center filled with other people’s babies, laughing and singing and playing, I was silently still reeling.
It wasn’t until the weekend came that I turned to look my Pain in the eyes. It crashed unmercifully into me like a wave and dragged me beneath the surface. My whole world violently quaked and crumbled around me. I wailed and screamed and whimpered and cried in my grieving husband’s arms. And through the sobs, told him I wanted to name this child.
We immediately chose the name “Sparrow.”
— — —
For the first three years after Sparrow’s death, I wrote to friends, family, followers, and fellow parents of lost children about my experience on this journey. I share these reflections now to offer a fuller picture of this Journey of Grief and Growth as it has been for me, so that others who have walked, are walking, or will walk this same path may find some familiar footsteps alongside their own.
— — —
April 4th, 2017- Baby’s due date
Today was the day we had thought we would be meeting our baby. The Universe, however, had different plans for our precious Sparrow. And today, Smith and I are spending the day alone together, honoring our child.
“I didn’t tell anyone we were expecting, but when our baby died, I wished I had” is a sentiment often present in my mind. I’ve wanted to be a mom since I was 4 years old; I’ve made my life about caring for children and preparing for motherhood. Losing a baby was my very worst fear, and when it really happened, I didn’t think I could survive.
Though we deeply miss our child, we know that Sparrow came to us and left us by design. Some reasons we were able to immediately identify, others will occur to us as Life carries us on, and some we may never fully realize. Today we celebrate the existence of our baby. We know Sparrow was not created to walk on Earth, so we cannot regret our child’s departure from this physical life. We know Sparrow experiences our love daily and is therefore free to soar through the skies with joy and confidence.
Sparrow’s middle name, “Jendayi” is an Egyptian word which means “thankful,” because we could feel nothing less to have been given this special gift of an all-too-common kind of parenthood.
We are thankful for the things which the existence of our child has taught us and will teach us. We are thankful Sparrow made us parents. We are thankful for the brief time we were given to spend with our baby.
We are thankful for, we eternally love, we deeply miss, and today we celebrate, Sparrow Jendayi Hutton-Smith.
“My child, I carried you for every second of your life, and I will love you for every second of mine.”
— — —
September 2, 2017- First Sparrow’s Day
“Even as I rocked on my knees, howling, I detected soft breathing behind the roaring. I leaned in, listened. It was the murmuring of 10 million mothers, backward and forward in time and right now, who had also lost children. They were lifting me, holding me. They had woven a net of their broken hearts and they were keeping me safe there. I realized that one day I would take my rightful place as a link in this web, and I would hold my sister-mothers when their children died. For now my only task was to grieve and be cradled in their love.”
-- Mirabai Starr (from Caravan of No Despair)
One year ago, I crawled out of bed to labor on the bathroom floor and in the emergency room through the early morning hours.
One year ago, I said goodbye to my long anticipated earthly baby, and gained a child who forever soars in the heavens.
One year ago, I began an unanticipated journey of breaking, grieving, coping, learning, healing, and growing.
One year ago, my voice was added to the murmuring, my heart was woven into the net, and I took my place as a link in this web of sister-mothers.
Though the pain is still the same, I am different.
It is a strange thing to forever love a child who never walked the earth, but we do. It is a strange thing to feel honored to be a part of this web of powerful women, but I do.
We are mothers to unseen children, and we are strong.
I will love you every day of my life, Sparrow Jendayi, and I will never let your memory fade.
— — —
May 13, 2018- Mother’s Day
This is my second Mother’s Day since we lost our baby, Sparrow. It is such a beautifully difficult day. For those of us who have lost children, motherhood is a different experience... This year Smith gave me a necklace, which has immediately become one of my most cherished possessions.
It depicts the moon on September 2, 2016, the day Sparrow was born and left us: The New Moon: the moon which announces the end of an entire lunar cycle and the beginning of a new one. This was the moon in the sky on the night which at once made us parents and whisked our child away.
What a deep significance is held in this necklace, this moon, this experience of motherhood.
I love you forever, Sparrow Jendayi.
— — —
September 2, 2018- Second Sparrow’s Day
“Miscarriage” has always seemed to me a cold medical term for “baby’s death,” as if parents who experience it shouldn’t recognize it as a real tragedy simply because it’s so common a phenomenon.
But the plain fact is: we did not simply “lose a pregnancy;” we lost a child.
For those of us who have lost our children before they’d reached their full terms, I think it’s easy to get trapped by comparison, and to feel there are subsequent rules for our grief : “she was further along than I was,” or “she’d waited so much longer than me,” or “at least she saw her baby’s face or knew its gender,” etc. But I’ve come to realize the strength and ferocity of a mother’s love is the same in all of us, and the severity of a mother’s grief of is not dictated by a number of weeks or by the circumstances of her experience. It is a mother’s biological right to love her children completely, regardless of any variables in others’ stories.
Losing our precious baby altered the course of my life in many profound ways I couldn’t have imagined. Sparrow -in life, death, and beyond- has brought so much to me I didn’t realize was missing. Forever loving and cherishing a child who never walked on earth is a transformative experience for which I am grateful.
Today Smith and I celebrate our sweet child’s presence in our lives.
"My child, I carried you for every second of your life, and I will love you for every second of mine.”
— — —
September 2, 2019- Third Sparrow’s Day
Today marks three years since our baby left us. Three years. I can hardly believe it. We’ve developed our traditions, our rituals, our annual ways to honor our baby on this day. We do the same things on this day every year. And I’m comforted by them. Yet, I know what to expect. It’s our routine.
And just accepting that fact breaks my heart. I never thought my grief for losing my child would become routine.
I never know what I’m going to write for these posts ahead of time. I just open up a blank Word document on September 2nd and start typing. The last two years, I was brimming with all the things this journey was teaching me. I was overflowing with the beautiful insight I’d been gaining… I learned how to be strongly rooted, yet sway with the winds; I learned to increase my emotional intelligence; I learned I could forever be connected with my child, even after death; I learned how to mourn; I learned not to minimize or apologize for my grief just because miscarriage is so common; I learned how to find wisdom in the hardest trials; I learned how to support others walking down this same path; I learned how to trust the Universe unconditionally; I learned I am unbreakable; I learned how to let go, and so much more…
And now this journey of grief, full of wise teachings, has led me to this place of peace. And maybe that’s supposed to feel like a gift. But for me, it more often feels like I’m wasting my child’s influence on my life. It feels as if I’ve learned what I could from it and now it’s time to move on to something else.
But I don’t want to move on to anything else. I want my child’s life to influence mine forever.
Before I was ever pregnant, and miscarriage was my very worst fear in the world, I would see women who had lost their babies and think, “I would never survive that.” And when my baby did die inside me, I thought, “I will not survive this.” And as I began to walk down the path of mourning and excruciating pain, I encountered other mothers who had lost their children, and I found they could talk about it without tears. And I thought, “I will never be able to do that. I will always cry for my child. I will never accept my baby’s death. I will never become so complacent about it.”
And here I am now. Year Three. I have not only survived my child’s death, but I can now also discuss it without tears.
But I don’t think it’s because I’ve “accepted” it, and I’m certainly not complacent about it. And I don’t think those other mothers I encountered have necessarily accepted their babies’ deaths or actually become complacent, either. I think I had just misunderstood what grief really does to a person.
I think maybe the grief sort of razes us to the ground, and we then have to find a new normal.
I miss that knife-tearing-through-my-chest feeling, though. It was almost easier to bear when the pain was so visceral. I felt like a mother properly mourning her child’s death. But that pain has changed now. In three years, it’s become a part of me. It’s just always there.
And I’m not truly done learning. The task ahead of me now is to learn how to forgive myself for having peace, and to realize that peace is not a signal I’ve accepted my baby’s death or don’t love my child anymore. I must learn how to navigate this quieter kind of grief, the kind that doesn’t tear through me anymore. Just because the lessons aren’t so deep and frequent now, it doesn’t mean my child’s life doesn’t have an eternal influence over mine. Because it does.
Sparrow Jendayi, I carried you for every second of your life, and I will love you for every second of mine. I will never let your memory fade. You changed my life forever, my child. I love you so much.
