To The Stranger Who Pities Me

“An odd by-product of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not. I hate it if they do, and if they don’t.”

Excerpt from A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

You see me out with my son. Just a regular mom with a baby in a stroller.

You’re just trying to make pleasant conversation, so you ask if he’s my first.

I wonder if you notice the hesitation that follows. Do you see the look on my face as my brain races through every potential outcome of this conversation to determine what the best response is? It feels like trying to solve a complex math equation in my head.

Eventually I will tell you “no, he is my second.” I pray that it will end there.

But because again, you’re just trying to be friendly, more questions will follow.

You may ask “is your first a girl or a boy?”

I know from experience where this will lead. If I answer plainly with “girl”, you will tell me how lucky I am to have the perfect nuclear family, with a boy and a girl. What you don’t know is that my family is permanently imperfect, because someone very important is missing.

But you usually ask “How old is your first?”

At this point, I will matter-of-factly inform you that my firstborn daughter died as an infant. Depending on my mood that day, I may tell you how old she’d be if she were still alive.

My heart sinks as I watch your expression. You pause, grappling with how best to respond. A very understandable pause to take. I wonder if you regret asking. Perhaps you won’t ask the next mom pushing a baby in a stroller if she has other children. I wonder if you may be judging me for the way that I simply stated that she died. Maybe you even think I’m somehow okay with this heartbreaking reality. But you don’t know how many times I’ve delivered this news.

In the beginning as I answered these questions, my voice would shake. I avoided eye contact. I teared up. But now, I state it as plainly as I state my name and address at the doctor’s office.

“My daughter died.”

I know you were just trying to make pleasant conversation. But my story is more complex than you initially assumed. My motherhood path is anything but cookie cutter. You underestimated the heaviness of how our conversation. For that, I feel strangely guilty. Did I ruin your day with my sad life story?  

I want to make you understand how badly I wish answering these questions could be light and breezy. I wish I could simply tell you that my son’s 20-month-old sister was at home with her dad. I wish I could tell you a joke about how crazy life is with two under two. But that isn’t my reality, and I cannot pretend that it is.

I didn’t choose this story, but I have to embrace it the best I know how. I’ve spent over a year now trying to find a way to bring up my dead daughter in conversations without instantly turning the conversation into an awkward and heavy one.

At this point, we have reached a crossroads. You speak again.

Most commonly, you simply state “I’m sorry”. Then you either change the subject, or the conversation just abruptly ends. I’m quite okay with this outcome.

Sometimes, you take it a step further and try to fix my pain. You are so uncomfortable with my sad story that you try to put a positive spin on it. You seem determined to wrap this conversation up with a pretty bow. You may even tell me “oh, well now you have this little one!” as if my children are interchangeable. As if new life replaces a lost one. As if you don’t understand how completely and uniquely a mother loves each of her children. As if you doubt my ability to be sad that my daughter is dead and be grateful for my son, even though I am fully capable of doing both. Admittedly, this is my least favorite outcome to this conversation.

Sometimes, you get curious. You ask how she died. But now isn’t the time or place to tell you about the most painful event of my life. What you don’t seem to understand is that asking about my daughter is different than asking me about her death. I wrestle with the reality of her death each day, but I don’t get to speak her name or talk about her life nearly as often as I would like to.

I wish you would simply ask me her name. If you did, I would feel instantly relieved. I would show you her picture. I would tell you that she lived 44 miraculous days that were never guaranteed. I would tell you that not only did she die, but she also lived. A fact that gets brushed over far too often in the face of the harsh reality of her death and subsequent absence.

I must admit that I have a hard time being the recipient of your pity. I’ve learned that there is a distinction between pity and empathy. The first only makes the load feel heavier, and the second stops to share the load for a moment.

If you are one of the rare ones who shows empathy, that outcome will surprise me most of all. You will stop for a moment to put yourself in my shoes. You will desire to know more, not out of mere curiosity, but out of compassion.

You say things like, “that must be so hard for you”

“I can only imagine the grief you must feel.”

“You must miss her so much.”

Or, my favorite, “Would you like to tell me about your daughter?”

Stranger, no matter which of these responses you had, I want you to know that there is grace for you. I hope you will extend the same grace to me when I fail to respond eloquently, as I often do. And to the rare stranger who tries to acknowledge my grief, thank you for helping my heavy load feel lighter, if only for a fleeting moment.

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