It was nearly fall of 2016 and there were so many reasons that I wanted to go to the Sahara Desert. It had been a year and a half since our newborn son had died in our arms. He was our firstborn after a string of 5 miscarriages—our rainbow baby. And still he had died the day after he was born.
His death had pulled apart everything in our worlds, and my husband and I were still grieving, still searching, still raw with loss. I wanted to be somewhere far away from the world of people for whom I had no explanation of our loss. And also, from the harried chaos of New York City, the TD store that I managed, the customers that came in and out of my location--all carrying on their lives as if mine had not just broken in two. I told my manager I was lost, and I needed time, and I remember the softness in her eyes when she encouraged me to do whatever I needed--that my TD family would be there waiting for me when I was ready.
The desert seemed like heaven--an oasis of tranquility--a simplicity of landscape and color, a place I could go to find respite from the wounds that had stopped speaking and were now shouting out of every corner.
All my life, I’ve loved to learn other languages, but when we arrived in Morocco, we were glad for the language barrier. We’d spent a year answering questions, asking questions, smothering our anguish in words over words like a quilt thrown on a fire. The bus ride out to the desert took over a day with the jagged land slowly fizzling out to soft mountains of sand. The wind blew sand into the handkerchiefs covering our mouths. The air was searing in the lowering sun. The camels we took rocked back and forth on exquisitely padded feet as night began to mute the sky. All was quiet except the leather saddle shifting beneath me. By dusk we arrived at our Bedouin campground.
I remember a few things about the evening's fireside performance. There were drums and large, colorful carpets rolled out over the sand. We ate kofta served on low tables all along the ground. My husband and I snuck away as the drums grew loud. We snuck outside the tents and past the camels grouped together outside of them. We kept going until the sand became smooth and untouched. There we stopped and looked up at the sky. We had never seen a sky so massive. The stars were like a glimmering ocean. We held each other. We were finally alone, inconsequential to the world and removed from its story—our story. We wept.
'There was still wonder to be had'
Over the past year, so much of our world seemed to contract as one possibility after another quietly vanished like doors fading into solid walls. But there beneath the stars, we were without context. We were two souls looking up at the sky like so many souls before us and for the first time in a long while, the world expanded. We felt…wonder. Holding my husband that night felt like a beginning. The last year had felt like a story that refused to find an end, but we were still here after all--still together. Still broken maybe, but still healing too, hand in hand, after having survived a loss that usually tears marriages apart. There was still wonder to be had. Still so many unknowns to explore. The world was wide open for us, and finally we could catch our breath.
Every year, as October 15—Infant Loss Awareness Day—approaches, I reflect on the passing time since Wyatt's death. This year, he would've turned ten. I’m still with the bank that held me up each day for those ten years. So many faces reaching out to me tenderly when the days felt unbearable. The significance of Infant Loss Awareness Day is profound, and I am keenly aware of the quiet grief of so many parents. Do they know that there are others? Do they know grieving a child is more common than most people admit? Is their world still contracting? My heart whispers to them "don't despair, you will find wonder again--the sky is wide enough for your sorrow."
Our night in the Sahara was the miraculous middle of a three-year period after losing Wyatt that I always think of as the "wilderness years." The first half of those years we spent aimlessly wandering until we found ourselves that night in the silence of the sky. And the second half we spent wandering further but finally knowing in our hearts that we were not lost. And finally, in the last of those wilderness years, that same sky that watched over us sent something remarkable our way. Her name is Reilly. And she is made of stars.
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