Flavia Guarino

My very close friend has just miscarried her much anticpated little baby. It came as quite a shock to everyone and now she is faced with losing her baby tummy, dealing with a curette and post-operative pain, the hormonal rollercoaster of child birth as well as the grief that this sad situation presents including the constant reminders of preparations already made for the baby’s arrival and…of sympathetic friends.

I am one of those friends. I just want to make it all better for her and make the pain go away. She shares my Christian beliefs and we are both at a loss for a reason as to why the baby has been miscarried. After all God is the Giver of Life.

She is being vey brave and she knows that God will restore this life that has been stolen; but that element of trusting when you just don’t understand is the brave bit for me looking on. She has even shared a rather comic moment from a movie where a woman whose husband had recently passed away has just attended the funeral and has returned home to prepare for the wake. She is standing with a friend in an upper room of her home looking out over the lawn as a procession of people begins walking up towards her door ready for the wake of her husband. As the ladies watch them the widow shares something to the effect of…’Look at them, I feel sorry for them, imagine being in their shoes– what are they supposed to say to me!’

My friend has shared similar feelings as she has watched the procession of friends like me, attempting to be sympathetic and not really having a clue as to what she is going through.

After I sought some information on how to support someone who has recently experienced a miscarriage; on my ever trusty computer and then making her favorite smoothie, purchasing the obligatory bunch of flowers with a tub of her favourite chocloate ice-cream I intrepidly ventured over not wanting to intrude on a very personal and possibly private moment. She was delighted to see me and I know that the conversation and ‘just being there’ was what counted I was still at odds as I walked away. Knowing how long it has taken for my own grief to subside I wondered if I had said the right things and still felt overwhelmed with the responsibility of fixing everything for her and almost as though it was my fault that she was suffering.

It took a wiser more experienced person to enlighten me to the fact that I can’t take on responsibilty that is not mine. This is my friend’s journey this time: not mine. I need to emotionally detach myself from the situation in order to provide the support that she needs. If I couldn’t detach then I would be choosing to stay away because I felt so helpless. I would be making it about me and how helpless or responsible I felt, rather than about her pain. I also need to realize that her situation is very different from my past experiences and notice that she has several people supporting her; most importantly her husband!

For a time there I felt that I was slipping back into my own grief and helplessness because I wanted to stop anyone having to go through life’s traumas alone as I did: she is not alone. That is where the separation took place. I am not God. His ways are not mine and I need to trust Him to help her through her grief and use me where He sees fit rather than me tying to fix everything on my own. And of course it takes time…