Poem: I light this candle

This poem is dedicated to all the women who have had to make the painful decision to end a pregnancy after receiving a serious and/or fatal fetal diagnosis. Their courage and strength to endure this excruciating life experience and to recover a sense of meaning is inspiring, and certainly meets hero criteria in my mind.

I light this candle

In honor of
You, the one who had to make the decision
you never wanted to make. After all,
women who want their babies more than
life itself, want them to be loved, to survive.
And it’s not true that all losses are the same.
You grieve for the hands never touched,
for the cry that only your body could console,
for the deep feeling of ocean you imagined
when holding the gaze of his or her eyes,
the eyes that might have been blue
like that ocean, or brown as the earth
beneath you.

May the light of your courage,
your compassion, your tenacity to thrive
never be extinguished.

May the silence you endure everyday
give you a strength you never knew you had.

May the tears of your truth
bring wisdom for tomorrow.

This candle, this poem, this hope
is for you.