3 years ago, Yulia lost her son Simon at the very end of her pregnancy. Today, on the occasion of the world day of perinatal mourning, this mother has decided to write a letter to parents who have also experienced this tragedy.
In Lyon, October 15, 2020
To you who will read this letter, I just wanted to tell you that I am like you.
You may only see my smile and the hand I give to my child, but I am and have been like you …
I am like you because I know today is not a day like any other. Because today my eyes will be sad, my gestures clumsy, and my silences deafening. Because today, I will have only one name in my head, in my arms, in my heart. That of my little Simon, my first child. A name that few people dare to pronounce out loud, or that many others sadly have forgotten. Because today is October 15, World Perinatal Bereavement Awareness Day, and it's a day that matters to me. Because like you, I am the mother of a child who has flown away …
It was 4 years ago. I was at the end of my pregnancy. With a round stomach, heavy legs and a heart swelling with love, I was about to experience the best moments of my life. There was no shadow on the board. Her little bed was ready. Share them ordered. Simon's 5 letters hung on the wall of his bedroom. Yet there was that terrible moment when my whole life was turned upside down. And unfortunately, you know this moment as well as I do. It’s a moment that lasts only a few seconds and an eternity at a time. An incomprehensible, impossible moment. Intolerable. Totally inconceivable for the mechanism of our brain. A moment of extreme intensity and one that inflicts pain on you beyond what the human heart can handle. As if reeling from a crash test, the violence of which strikes you deep inside. An accident of life that shatters you forever.
That unbearable moment, I still remember. I will always remember it. "I don't have any good news to tell you …" How can I forget that murderous phrase uttered feverishly by my doctor and whose gaze didn't even dare to rest on me? With those few words, I realized that my child had fallen asleep forever. At this precise moment, it is two hearts which are extinguished. Simon's and mine.
So like you, I experienced an earthquake, a tsunami that literally ravaged my heart and my entire life. Like you, I returned home, without my baby in my arms and with only the weight of mourning. However, my mother's body still kept the signs of this little life that I carried and that I gave, but differently.
Just like you, I have known that pain that suffocates you, that prevents you from breathing, that eats you, that plagues you. I felt lost, exhausted, way too damaged for my age. I have known absence, emptiness, guilt. I experienced the infinite sadness and unbearable lack of my child. I heard terrible silences within me screaming my anger against life, its injustice, and my unconditional love for my child. I looked away from pregnant women and new mothers carrying their babies full of life in their arms. I lost confidence in nature, in life. I lost confidence in myself. I have experienced the worst loneliness, because grief scares people and the grief of a child even more. I heard clumsy "You'll see, it'll be okay", "It's nothing, you'll get more". I was hurt by terrible "Better it to happen then than later" and "Maybe it was better this way". I discovered the real loss of landmarks and meaning. I understood who my real friends were, my real family and all those who weren't.
And then one day I started to write, to post my feelings on my blog. I shared with women and mothers what I had deep inside me. Many of them have written to tell me that my words / ailments are theirs. As if through my writing, we were talking – finally – for them. So I felt useful and continued to write. I wrote night and day, my passion for writing gradually becoming evident. I wrote texts, poems, short stories. I even wrote a book, the title of which SOLD OUT sums up what my heart was going through. Like therapy, words took me on an extraordinary adventure. An adventure made of encounters, sharing, common support, moments of life told with modesty and love, moments of hope. But I think in the end, the person I discovered the most in this journey was me. And gradually, my pain started to heal.
Surprising as it may be, it was "thanks" to Simon's grief that I realized who I was and what I really was inside of me. Yes, it’s thanks to Simon, a tiny boy weighing 3.4 kg and 50cm. Even as I write it today, I realize that this sentence still hurts me and that this paradox is totally masochistic. Obviously, I would have been content with what I already knew about me (very little for me Freudian introspection) and I would have preferred to have my child alive with me.
Unfortunately, no one asked me for my opinion. This situation, this drama, is the choice of nature, of life or of any god. But whatever ! What you need to know above all else, what you need to know, what it was we had nothing to do with. The misfortune was inflicted on us and we had no choice but to endure it. On the other hand, what belongs to us and what depends on us is to make the difficult and courageous choice to get up, to move forward and to relearn how to live. For my part, I made this choice and just like you, I fought this battle every day. “Each of my steps has been a challenge. Each step has become an achievement. Each ascent was a victory over life ”*.
It was then that I discovered myself and realized that for the love of my child, I was able to climb all the mountains in the world. And know that this day will also come for you. Like in a metamorphosis, I broke the shackles I was locked in and chose the new path that now seemed to be mine. And in this rebirth, I stood up stronger, more sensitive, more self-confident and more open to the people and the world around me. And above all, more alive than ever.
Thanks to Simon, I put aside my reserve while keeping my modesty, to raise awareness of perinatal bereavement on social networks, on television and on the radio. I made a 180 ° turn in my professional life by choosing retraining. After studying law, Sciences Po Paris and more than ten years in a CAC 40 company, I decided to leave my comfortable life as an executive behind me to learn how to bake sourdough bread and open a bakery. organic. Imagine the shock wave for those around me! But the daily need for meaning was stronger than anything. I also believe that I needed to prove to myself that certain decisions, certain actions, certain dreams could still be mine. And above all, I continued writing, this time with a novel, which I hope in 2021 will finally see the light of day.
During this time, the pain kept healing, but never went away. Gradually I learned to tame her, to calm her down, to listen to her and to let her roar when necessary. Little by little, I got used to living like this. With my pain, my pain, with this scar that will never go away and without my child by my side. Know that it has taken a long time and will still be needed. Grieving is a process that never stops. You don't go from black to white overnight. Mourning, you have to live it. It is a long road with which we live and evolve, and which over time takes on the most beautiful colors of the sky.
For me, these colors will also have been those of the rainbow. Two years after Simon's death, I became a mother for the second time with the arrival of our little Joseph. A little boy who is two years old today and who lights up my life. An extraordinary happiness that I never thought possible and of which I measure every millimeter and every second. And one day you will see, these colors will also be yours and happiness will return. He always comes back, believe me.
Looking back, I realize that my two children have given me the most precious present in the world. Each in their own way, they opened my eyes to teach me how to live fully for them, for me. Simon with his little eyes that will forever sleep peacefully. Joseph with his big green eyes full of laughter and life. I believe that the very moment we become a mother, we are being pushed deep inside. At the very heart of who we are. It doesn't matter whether the child is on earth or in the sky. Each of our children offers us a breath of life as it settles in our body, in our heart. We wear them, we rock them, we love them. But I sincerely believe that it is they who give us life. Because our children are the navel of our world.
Today is October 15th and like you, I will be thinking hard about my child who is no longer there. In my right hand, I will carefully hold Joseph's little hand. In my left hand, Simon's balloon. This white balloon, we will send it high up in the sky. I'll watch him fly, I'll let him go. I will cry and smile at the same time, as always now. It's a duality of my life that sums up my whole universe. For my mother's heart will always be between earth and heaven, and this is how it will live.
And then one day you too will write a letter to a mother whose heart is bleeding on October 15th. You will tell him your story, to show him that over time, you have tamed the pain and that you have risen up much stronger than before. You will tell her that everything will be fine with her, that she doesn’t worry. That happiness will return and that one day, in turn, she will be like you …
https://www.amazon.fr/journal-dune-maman-comme-autres/dp/220412866X/*extrait from A Vif, Ioulia CONDROYER éditions du Cerf.