Grieving the Possibility

For many, Veterans Day is a day to remember those who have served our nation in the armed forces.  Originally known as Armistice Day, it marked the anniversary of the First World War or as it was known hopefully by those who lived through that frightening time; the “war to end all wars”.  For me, for the past thirty years it has been the day I miscarried my last child.

I will always remember this event happened on Veterans Day.  Dave was on active duty at the time  and so we went to the labor and delivery deck at the old Portsmouth Naval Hospital; a scary building which was originally built as the brig. (I’m not sure when it was built, but I’m fairy certain it dates back to when the original hospital was built in 1827.)  Because of the holiday  there was minimal staff and were not  particularly warm or considerate, treating me more like an inconvenience than someone in distress.

I received adequate care but the holiday created  enough hiccoughs in services like the unavailability of clean linens, etc.,  that the fact that my miscarriage landed on a national holiday, has been firmly planted in my brain and so does not slip by each year unnoticed.

So, every year while people seem to trip over themselves to “thank us for our service,”  which, by the way, is a relatively new concept in my almost forty years of military wife experience, I instead spend time wondering how our lives might have been different if we’d had a third child as a member of our family.

The only thing we knew for certain about this child was that it was a boy.  There were indications leading up to my miscarriage that his heartbeat was slowing but whether that was indicative of a defect or just part of his passing, we’ll never know. All we can say for sure it that there once was a possibility of a child, his health may have been poor and that even after thirty years gone by, I still look back and wonder just what it would have been like to have been his mother.

This year’s remembrance of my lost child has been compounded by my feelings about the result of last week’s presidential election.  Just as I was certain at the beginning of my last pregnancy that I would carry my baby to term, I was equally as certain, based on Nate Silver’s track record and my own hopes, that our country would elect Hillary Clinton to be our next president.  Neither happened as I would have expected.

And so this year, I also grieve the loss of what might have been.  The potential of what Hillary Clinton could have brought to our county is what we will never know and it saddens me deeply.  I’ve never cried after election results were announced before.  Since Wednesday morning I’ve teetered on the edge and several times have allowed myself the self-indulgence of a good cry. It doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t make me feel any better, it just is.

Thursday afternoon Dave and I went down to Colonial Williamsburg for a long awaited getaway weekend.  As we emerged ourselves in colonial America, I began to regain my perspective.  On our visit to Charlton’s Coffee House on Duke of Gloucester Street we were immersed in the year 1765.  After our interpreter gave her presentation  regarding the “current” debate about the recent Stamp Acts she asked those gathered if there were any questions.  A woman asked if there had been much talk of revolution.  Staying in character, the interpreter replied no.  She went on to say that there was not telling what would happen within the next ten years or so, but for now (1765) the residents of Williamsburg were all good British subjects and happy to be so.  And in all reality, if the revolution hadn’t happened, I don’t think our lives would be radically different from what they are today.

And so it goes.  We just don’t know what will come our way in the next ten years.  All we can count on for certain is that time will pass and things will change, because they always do.  Going forward, I will try to wrap my head around our new national reality and continue my work in my community but there will always be that part of me that will wonder about what could have been.