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Three weeks after the funeral of my newborn son, I gave everything I had bought for him to a mother with a baby who was struggling financially. For the first time since his death, I slept through the night. But before sunrise, dozens of strollers lay scattered across my lawn, and what I found inside made no sense at all.
The morning light filtered through the dusty blinds of Noah’s room and cast long, pale streaks over the cradle in which he had never lain.
I stood by the door, unable to go inside nor to go outside.
Three weeks had passed since my little son had died in the hospital.
Her clothes were still folded on the dresser, exactly where she had put them.
The diaper packages remained sealed.
Her stroller was stored in a box next to the wardrobe.
Thomas and I had put it together once and pushed it through the hallway as a practice run before putting it away again.
Now Thomas had left too.
A week earlier, I walked into our bedroom and saw him packing his suitcase.
‘Are you really going to leave me?’ I asked him.
‘I can’t stay here,’ he replied. ‘Every time I walk past that door, it feels like I’m being buried alive.’
He was your son, Thomas.
She zipped it shut.
So you walk away… from him. From me. Two weeks after we buried him.
He stared at the ground.
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