A few days back, I was asking myself what date to keep to remember Ezra by. See, when a mother suffers a miscarriage, we tend to hold on to every little memory that we have of the baby that we haven’t physically held. That includes the dates – the day you found out you were pregnant, the expected delivery date,  the day of the first sonogram, the day you heard a certain song on the radio that connected you, and the day that you lost your baby.

I told Cris about this because it was really bothering me and he came up with an idea: What if we commemorate the miscarriage and treat it as Ezra’s birthday? If we look at it, we did not really lose him. That was the day he became our angel… 

It was a good idea at that time and I was pacified. I loved it! We will go to church first thing in the morning, light a candle for Ezra, and say a little prayer. We will then buy him a cake and sing him a Happy Birthday.

But it turned out that it was a much bitter pill to swallow. The night before the 10th, I was crying myself to sleep. I woke up with swollen eyes, a heavy head, and a way heavier heart. The more I thought about our plans, the sillier they seemed. I was beginning to think of backing out and just crawling back to my bed and just stay there for the rest of the day.

But something clicked. It’s already been a year and I still feel the pain today as if it was still fresh. Then for some reason I got reminded of  a quote from the book Tuesdays with Morrie:

You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, “All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.”

Maybe, the pain and sadness is not really meant to go away. You never really get over a loved one’s death. The feeling just varies in magnitude; some days are just harder than the others. They do come in waves, with their crest and troughs.

But you need to be able to recognize it and acknowledge it so you can compartmentalize. There’s no way around it but through it.

Author John Green agrees with this, too: Pain demands to be felt. 

And so Dear Ezra, let Mama and Papa greet you a Happy Birthday. You still make me sad, but you’re my favorite pain that I will never want to let go.