There are some special clubs you never want to join, no matter how amazing the members are, no matter what mysteries you will learn about, or how much you’ll grow. There are some ways that one wants to be stretched.
There are elite clubs whose admission fee is far too high, whose membership demands more than an arm and a leg, more than all your stored-up savings, more than all your saved-up strength. There are some which require having your very heart ripped open and then sewn back together to make it bigger.
There are some clubs that will change you more than you ever thought possible—that will transform you into an instrument of healing for others. You will be able to reach people more deeply than ever before, for by your wounds they shall be healed.
These clubs are full of the most courageous, generous people you’ve ever met, who have become more than friends, who are now your sisters, who are family. And yet, like most families, you were born into it by the shedding of blood.
The wisdom gained by suffering is so hard-won.
Oh, would that I were foolish and innocent again! That the world was simple and safe, and heartbreak was but a thing in songs, and not present in the echos of my own heartbeat.
But you cannot return to life before, just as a snake can’t crawl back into its old skin. Your heart has been carved by caverns of sorrow—it will not return to its former shape. This is you now—forever transformed by losing a child. Their very DNA is forever etched into your bloodstream, their silent existence is always in your living breath. You would not have it otherwise—the numbness of forgetting your child would be worse than feeling the pain of a love that never stops reaching for your little lost one.
You see them in the outline of a fallen leaf, in the delicate curve of a snowdrop, in the twinkle of stars between cherry blossoms on a spring night, in the misty face of the harvest moon, distant and ethereal, yet bathing the whole world in its light.
It’s been ten years since my little darling died in labour and I joined the sisterhood of bereaved mothers.
We have no special uniforms or club member pins, come from all social classes and backgrounds and generally walk through the crowds unnoticed. But perhaps you’ll see those extra wrinkles around our eyes because we have laughed and cried so deeply.
Perhaps you’ve felt the sincere warmth of our hugs after you’ve shared your worries with us, and the roaring power of our prayers when you were in labour. Because we know. We know. And we love you enough to wish that you will never join us.
There are enough of us already, and once a member, always a member. No need for yearly dues; your heart, once broken, is payment enough.
Just East Of Crazy Land 
Powerful words. 🤗🤗🤗.
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Thank you so much!
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Aw so beautifully written. So true too. Love you. X Terry Lyn Sent from my iPhone
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Thank you darling Terry Lyn ❤️🌹❤️love you, too. Thanks for being my rock so many times…
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Thanks for sharing Anna. Beautiful. 💞Sent from my iPad
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Thank you, Janet!! 🌟❤️🌟
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Hi , new reader here. I actually found your work as I’ve been in the thralls of my own journey.
Inspiring, poignant, gut wrenching, warmth, familiarity, deep gratitude mixed with deep sorrow. All the words I feel while reading your last few open letters and also navigating my own thoughts. I’m glad I found your page.
“The club no one wants to join”, so befitting. And yet you meet some wonderful people. Your comforted, you see hope and love and your glad you can be there and even have a club to be in for this type of deep conversational loss. Or just the silent I’m here but not alone..
I resonate most with a few things,
“ Suffocated yet lonely “ that phrase is multifaceted in my life for different reasons as a sahm
The ability to connect with people on such an intimate level and yet not know them at all. This club is interesting.
Your blog name— I love! How fitting and ambiguous all at once.
Not wanting to forget, not wanting memories to be erased and yet wanting to be “healed” and not wanting to hear the constant low drum of pain that beats. And also knowing that it works differently in this space.
The fact that even though you process emotions… attempt to anyway— and can get to a “good place” you still can’t get past certain things, certain emotions, certain anomalies, certain thoughts that gnaw.
I am sorry to hear of your sorrow and your pain; yet grateful you have decided to openly write it as it has in a way helped me, maybe just not to feel lost and alone in this difficult and silenced space where no one shares.
I used to write a long time ago, and journal. The English language though weird at times has always brought me a way to concrete way to share all of life’s complexity and the emotions that come.
This new loss for me awakened again that fire that just got smoldered in the busy nature of life. I always felt the need to share it but felt it was too deep and too much for others and maybe it is for some, but the audience it’s meant to reach will like me with you, find solace and comfort and it will be a balm on a wound. Thank you for giving me permission too in some weird way.
I look forward to exploring the space you share.
Merry Christmas. I pray your holiday season is filled with good cheer as well.
May you be blessed in this life and the one to come. And may we dance and hug our little ones when we see them again in eternity which has no bounds and no end and where death and sorrow can no longer haunt us.
Thank you again. From both myself and my Edmund. 10/5/24.
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Dear Erica,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful reading and heartfelt comments about my writing.
“yet grateful you have decided to openly write it as it has in a way helped me, maybe just not to feel lost and alone in this difficult and silenced space where no one shares.”
This is one of the important reasons why I write! To touch one heart. To bring one person comfort out of my sorrow. I’m so glad reading has made you feel less alone.
I am so sorry for your very recent loss of your precious and irreplaceable Edmund. I have a rainbow baby, born after I lost Josephine, named Edward. I also love that name beicase of the character in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.
Please feel free to contact me any time to talk about your son, your grief, your recovery, anything. It helps. If you’d ever like to chat over zoom, let me know and we could do that also.
Thanks for inspiring me to keep writing! I’d really like to blog more. You can also find me on Instagram at @annaeastlandpoet and @justeastofcrazy.
Huge hugs and wishing you gentle comfort this bittersweet Christmas. There’s a book called Even After Everything about making sense of the liturgical year when it’s joy doesn’t match your life at the time..written by a lady who miscarried her first just before Christmas. I think it looks really good.
Take care!
Anna
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