Five Years Ago
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        Five years can be a lifetime.  One thousand, eight hundred, twenty-six days; exactly how long since I lost Solomon. 
        On a quiet March afternoon, my obstetrician and husband helped me deliver a quiet baby, a baby whom I never saw and never held, a baby conceived from love and born in heartache.  A stillborn whom I’d learn a few weeks later was my son. 
        The avalanche of grief that followed blanketed my senses, leaving me disoriented for months.  On some days, I hermitted myself in the house, afraid of what the outside world would bring.  On others, I’d venture out into a surreal existence, convinced at every turn there would be a mother with children, or worse, someone pregnant.  I had nowhere to hide.
        For months I couldn’t understand the whys?  Why me? Why G-d? Why?
        Joining a group for bereaved parents three weeks after my loss, I was able to slowly chip away at the concrete that surrounded my heart.  I was not alone.  There were other women who talked like me and looked like me, strangers brought together to mourn.
        As time passed, bits of myself began to emerge, only I wasn’t the same me.  There were scars no one could see.  In the immediate days following Solomon’s loss, family and friends helped.  Then the support stopped, and I learned quickly how to protect myself from indifference and ignorance.
        I would learn over the grieving months about physicalities that would be managed to bring me healthy children.  I miscarried another boy seven months after losing Solomon.  Now I mourned for two.
        Pregnant for the third time, I held my breathe for almost nine months.  I denied myself most of the happiness pregnant women feel.  I was afraid for the life inside me.  I relied on counseling and my mourning friends to get me through.
        Alison was born, and the last remnants of my grief dissipated.  Nineteen months later, came Adam.  With two children under two to take care of, there was little time to live in grief.
        And now, on March 8, 2005, I will reconnect to Solomon and let him know how our lives are.   I‘ll tell him about his little sister and brother and his stepbrother too.  I’ll share with him all the wonderful things he can see through the clouds and tell him I wish he were here with us.  I’ll thank him for his life as well. 
        Five years seems to have gone by in a flash.  I can now look back and reflect on my experiences, knowing I am a survivor, knowing that G-d didn’t punish me, and accepting that sometimes a why? will never be figured out.