When the Veil is Thin

Musings on loss and living and all the midwifing in between

*Content warning for grief and pregnancy loss*

Even though as I am writing this it is currently 85 degrees in the middle of October in Tennessee, allegedly it is fall. As the season changes, leaves leave the trees, and autumn rolls across the South, there’s a story I want to tell about the ways life bends towards death and death bends towards life. This season, when darkness returns early and the world remembers that the veil between here and there, life and loss, is always thin, here I can embrace the melancholy and lean into the depths. 

Death and life coexist in potent ways. Ways that sometimes trouble me even now. The difficult truth is that loss is a part of all there is. I’ve spent much of the last year wrestling with grief and the sadness that sometimes seems to be a permanent part of my person. These pieces feel most at home in the deep parts of the night when new souls seem to most often make their appearance. I’ve mostly accepted the grief and know it’s made me good with the quiet. I know it’s made me more focused, present, attentive, patient. I am the midwife I am because losing my little sister walked me through the valley of the shadow of death. Grief, I’ve said, is quite literally shit. But so is fertilizer, and now I can see all the ways it’s growing me. I know now that death is a part of life: the only promise for all those living. And that sentiment may seem somber. But to me, it’s forced the question: when nothing is promised but death, what must we do with our living?

Since my sister passed away, I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with living, knowing that so much of this life was outside of my control.  There is so much I cannot protect myself from. I could not and cannot shield myself from this sorrow. Pain and, to some extent, suffering in this life seem to be a part of the contract. So what will we do with it? When it cannot be outrun, how will we meet it? With grief, you grieve more than the loss of your loved one. You grieve the version of yourself that your person made possible. I meet this grief knowing there is no returning to my old self. The tide in my life has shifted. The season has changed. And I stand here knowing that no matter how much I learn, so much is still outside my control. And instead of running away from this fact, here I lean in and push forward–releasing myself into the unknown. 

This, too, is birth. What will we do with it? When it cannot be outrun, how will we meet it? 

We want so badly to control birth, to make it something without risk–something to be managed. But what if it is meant to be just as unwieldy as death? Sometimes unpredictable and uncontrollable. Meant to be witnessed and supported. It’s intensity, not something we can run from–something all of us must be willing to meet. The only promise that it makes is that it will transform us all with its raw power and might. Can we sit with it? In the heaviness and the quiet that accompanies both beginnings and endings. 

Life bending towards death. Death bending towards life. 

Unpredictable. Uncontrollable. But promised. This is what we learn at the gates of life. 

Can you meet me there–at the crossroads, at the threshold, in the quiet as we wait? 

I’ve spent the last 17 months birthing this new version of myself that yearns to sit at the gates of life to welcome souls even more now that I’ve spent so much time at the gates saying goodbye.

Now, when the world remembers that the veil is thin, I hold close to my heart the families who are forced to say goodbye to their babies long before they are ready. Babies that leave, that choose not to stay here with us, whose souls can’t be contained in these bodies that belong to the Earth, energies too ferociously wonderful to ever be temporal. Sitting with these families in their sorrow is a part of this work, too. Many of us will know this sort of loss. Between 10-20% of known pregnancies will end in a loss–with 80% of those happening in the first trimester. I wanted to take this moment, 12 weeks into the semester–almost the end of my first trimester right as the world for a second pauses to remember the dead, to sit with loss as this is a part of the journey. 

If loss is a piece of your story, you are not alone, my love. And there is nothing you could have or should have done.  Loss is a part of the living. I wish it wasn’t. It doesn’t seem fair. It simply shouldn’t be. But it is.  And I’m sorry. My hope is that in the quiet, there will be space to sit with the anguish, to stand with the sorrow–supported by those who see, know, and love you. There are no words for this type of despair. And maybe there is no consolation. There is only the power of presence. I see you, and I sit here with you. My hope is that your sorrow gives way to the power of creation. And all your prayers are answered. And one day, we will celebrate again. Til then, my love, we will sit in the silence and the reverence that grief and birth demand. 

Life bending towards death. Death bending towards life. 

In the quiet, as most of the world rests in the middle of the night, we, the midwives, the ones who frequent the veil, wait for the cry of a baby. The wail of the one who has entered into this world and chosen life–with all that‘s unknown and all the complications and uncertainty of the moment. As I bring baby to mama, I whisper, to myself almost a prayer, “Announce your arrival, my love. Come into this space and make your presence known. Be with us now. Choose life.” As we wait for that first cry and time stretches and bends, the frailty of life and the way it runs up against death forces us to take this moment seriously and hold it as sacred. Birth deserves that much. 

This week, for the first time, I cried at a birth. I sat with a mama and in the moment between contractions, as we all stood at the bridge between here and there, as her body paused its contracting to give her a moment of reprieve before pushing, she looked at me through tears to tell me of the miscarriage she had endured a year ago almost exactly to the day. Now, a year later, she returned to the very same hospital to welcome her new love. Chills ran over my body, and I cried. The nurse cried. My preceptor cried. Her mama cried. Life, in all its unpredictability, had brought us here together. Where she once came to say goodbye, here we were, waiting to say hello. Meeting in the same place at the same gates, this time, with expectations and celebration. Here in this place, birth became worship; hospital room turned sanctuary. Death yielding itself to life. And in the way that birth does, after this vulnerable truth was shared, once she released this part of herself and her story to us, her contractions returned. As if this newest baby could not enter before everyone in the room knew what had been lost. Until we all took the moment to sit with, witness, and reckon with her grief, only then could new life be welcomed in. 

Life bending towards death. Death bending towards life. 

No season lasts forever, and just as seasons change, sorrow can transform into celebration. Both birth and death ask who will we be on the other side of the transformation. In order to rise from the ashes, first, one must burn. For living to continue, we must surrender to all the things we must release. All the ones that won’t go with us. The mystery of all that lies beyond our control. To midwife is to be with in the release, in the letting go, and in the loss that comes with the living. Birth like death changes us in a way that says you will never be the same. There is no going back to our old selves. So be here now. New, unsteady, unsure. But here. Release. Transform. Let go of all that must die for us to know life. Let death bend towards life. Let the grief fertilize the soil. Know that we will grow again. In this garden of life, we are fortified by all who have walked before us; we are strengthened by all who have left us to tend to the soft parts of our existence. The parts that come forth in the darkness also hold the power of birth and creation. So, we resist the urge to run from the grief, the darkness, and its depths, for those who frequent the gates know that life is born of darkness and sometimes loss. And this knowing makes life that much more sacred and meant to be cherished because the veil is always thin where death begets life and life begets death. 

Many blessings,

Akaninyene

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I wanted to write a lot of things, but this is what needed to be written. With October being Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, November 1 being Dia de los Muertos, and walking with several patients who had experienced a loss over this semester, I felt called to sit with the ways grieving has impacted my own midwifery practice. I will only ever be a midwife who is accustomed to sorrows and well-acquainted with grief. And at the beginning of my practice, I was so angry that this is the type of midwife that I would be. I would give ANYTHING to have my sister back and NOT be this version of myself. But since that is impossible as the nights get longer, and the darkness creeps in, and the melancholy returns, I’ve been sitting with all the ways darkness and grief yield itself to creation. All the ways creation requires darkness. And darkness requires comfort with and in uncertainty. Loss transforms us in ways we cannot predict. And so does birth. 

If you or a loved one has experienced infant or pregnancy loss, I wanted to offer some resources: 

Pregnancy after Loss 

Stillbirth resources. 

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support

PSI Loss and Grief in Pregnancy

Photo by Ankhesenamun on Unsplash

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