I started a hope chest in my mid twenties–trinkets, books, hand blown ornaments and even crib sheets–all Winnie the Pooh for a nursery and a child I would never hold.  I thought I had mourned this years ago.  I thought I had excepted the loss. I thought wrong.

Two years ago, on a flight from New York during a delay, I had ample time to catch a movie.  I chose Goodbye Christopher Robin.  My favorite characters, my happy place turned into my own heart’s reckoning.  I sobbed. I cried off every layer of mascara. And this came in just the first ten minutes…

My mind went to a Waverly fabric trunk I purchased at a downtown Charleston estate sale in 1990. It was so beautifully made.  I decided it would hold many memories and dreams.  The first piece I placed inside was a hand crocheted quilt lovingly made by my Granny Kinne’s hands.  Intricate, but tattered, much like my life at the time.  Then, one by one, I placed each of the Winnie the Pooh treasures I had collected.

Newly married and looking to start a family we landed at the best fertility doctor we could find.  He said we had an antibody between us that did not match.  I have no desire to be graphic here, but, on a slide in the lab, my eggs literally ran, and fast!  Two years of heartbreaking cycle tracking, garage held meetings based on ovulation where you would stop your work day, send a beeper message and leave emotions in the driveway followed by three rounds of IVF.  All failed attempts.  All eroding at the marriage. No one ever prepared me for that.

As a child, you dress your doll babies, place them in the stroller and speak to them about how much they are loved and how their daddy loves them, too. You tell them stories and, in your head, you know you will one day be a wonderful Mommy telling your little girl or boy how they had always been there in your heart and in your head.  My fairy tale did not work out that way.

No baby.

No marriage.

I would have adopted.  He only wanted someone to carry on the family name.

We divorced.

I left with my hope chest.

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard….” A.A.Milne

Life moves forward, if you let it.  I found my own place, continued working in sales with salons and started dating again.  Dates lead to a relationship, the relationship lead to living together, living together lead to a pregnancy.

What???

I remember going back to my infertility doctor because they were a mile away and having an ultrasound and pregnancy test. I remember the shock when Lila told me they felt I was about two months along.

What??  Are you certain??

I just cried.

Looking back, I am not sure if it was because of the joy or because of the loss of my marriage, but I went home and opened the hope chest.  Every little piece still tucked away just waiting to meet this new little baby.  It was January.

We started looking to buy a home and planning for a future.  We visited his family in upstate New York and I remember laughing so hard when he presented me with a ring out of a gumball machine saying “it’s the best of its kind”. 

We were moving forward. Life didn’t let us.

Easter Sunday, two months later– I miscarried, in church.

I really did not know how to deal with the grief.  I threw myself into my work.  I had no real faith circle.  I had no answers. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want much of anything. I pushed the loss away and watched our relationship disintegrate.  I moved the hope chest and my hope into the attic.

I never mourned. I never said goodbye.

How could I?

I never even said hello…

Fast forward to 20 years later, sitting on a Delta flight, watching what I felt would be the a sweet pick-me-up kind of movie to start a long day.  What transpired was a muffled wailing of tears. I scared the man next to me so horribly because I could not catch my breath.  He rang the flight attendant.  I sat in a crumpled mess finally acknowledging the pain, the trunk and how that loss had never gone away.

“You’re braver than you believe and stronger and smarter than you think.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

I sold the trunk some years back and gave away the many pieces with the exception of a choice few.  I did not keep them to remind me of the loss, but to remind me of the love I had for that little person who never got to see my world with her.

I imagine the day when I will see her again and maybe, on that day, I will hear her call me “Momma”.  I was certainly blessed with the four months when I was…