I haven’t been on Glow for a while, but I just felt the need to share this moment with you who will understand.

This weekend some old friends, who for a time also were our neighbours, came to stay for a short visit; we hadn’t seen them for 5 years since they moved to a different country. In 2009 - seven years ago - their daughter Nancy was born six weeks after our own girl, Roxie, was stillborn at 38 weeks. The two girls should have been just a couple of weeks apart (Roxie was due on the 10th March, Nancy was born on the 30th).

Elizabeth is a very generous and gentle friend, helping us through our grief; and when she and the baby got home from the hospital, we went round to meet her. Elizabeth gently handed Nancy over to me to hold, saying to her “You, my darling, have missed out on meeting a very special little girl; this is her Mama.” We cried, and hugged, and cried some more.

My friendship with Elizabeth, cemented through this different shared experience of motherhood, has endured despite us living in separate countries; and over the years I have watched Nancy grow and always send her birthday gifts, understanding tacitly of course that these gifts are also somehow for Roxie.

But since then I have given birth to two glorious rainbow babies, now 5 and 3 years old. So, it was a very strange and wonderful moment last night when, exhausted from many hours playing in the summer sun, my two rainbow babies – who had only met Nancy for the first time that morning - snuggled up either side of her to watch a movie, literally resting their little heads on her slightly bigger shoulders. In that moment, of course, there was just one thought: they should be snuggling up to Roxie.

My heart ached; my soul lurched; and later I thanked the universe for this special moment.

What a special moment, and I can see how your heart ached.
Your friend is a diamond.

A little heartbreaking, bittersweet glance into what-could-have-been. Your friend really is a diamond, like said above.