The bag I take in is full -
But not of hope or goodness.
No, this bag is full of shattered dreams.
Here are the months I thought I would walk,
Unable to hide the child growing in me,
Waiting almost breathless for a first cry.
Here are the years of teaching one to be a brother
While the other learns to speak and walk.
Here is the thought that I could again be a mother.

Instead, someone else can comb through,
Seeking something they need to wear.
When you clean and prepare these clothes,
Remove (if you can) my touch of death,
The way my body kills the unborn,
My weakness and despair.
Leave them clean, that the next expectant mother,
The one still unburdened with death,
May find use for them in her days of waiting.

Beautiful.

I gave away my daughter's car seat about six months after she died and I felt that I shouldn't, because it had that touch of death that you describe so eloquently. It felt wrong to give away goods purchased for a child who had died. Although they are mere things, possessions, and not implicated in her death in any way. They were never even her's really, her things.

It took me a little time to tumble to the implications of the title, we wouldn't take bags to 'goodwill' here in the UK, but now I find it haunts me. And it seems to have so many layers of meaning to it.

Although I do hope for another pregnancy, I don't believe that I will ever feel 'expectant' again.

Thank you for posting here.

Wow. Every word in this is a thought I have had. I'm still working on giving up my baby things.

I have a doppler, that served me well during A's pregnancy, but was deadly silent the next time I used it for IZ. A few weeks ago, I almost offered it to a woman at work, but I just couldn't. We seem to be on the pathway to becoming friends, and I knew that at some point she might hear the story of IZ and that story might include me using the doppler. It did seem to have the taint of death on it.

brokenheartdiaries.blogspot.com

It is such a lovely written poem, though so created from such hurt. You describe it so achingly well.

We had a garage sale for things last weekend. I sold (or attempted to) sell an enormous collection that was to be Will's things. All were his older brother's. Four years worth of shoes and jeans and shirts and swimtrunks. I tried my best to remember only the memories that Sam (my living son) created in these items...but I still saw the shadow that Will left in these things, still with so much use left in them.

I sold Will's should-be crib set. I kindly thanked the women who bought it, went inside, and cried.

Those few things that were to be Will's and his alone...the matching preemie twin outfits, his first birthday outfit, are folded in a basket alongside the blanket that covered him when he was stillborn.

Peace to all who have to burden with these untouched items that were to be filled with living, laughing and healthy babies.

Great poem. Thank you for posting it. I also have the feeling that things intended for use for our daughter Salome have been tainted by her death. I didn't even want to offer my maternity clothes to others, because I didn't want other pregnant women to feel 'contaminated'. And also because the few things that were Salome's feel like relics to me. I have a favourite poem which describes how socks that had belonged to a child who has died are suddenly relics, and everything about the household space is a shrine. But it's so hard to live in a shrine isn't it. And all children constantly put it in our face that everything changes, so I feel like it dishonours our daughter's memory to try to preserve anything, even our grief for her, as unchanging and frozen. It's not in the nature of what babies and children are to keep anything about them the same week in week out, even my grief for her.

And those ideas are all well and good, but it is still hard to part with The Stuff.