What Doesn't Fade With Time
There are feelings that stay inside us for a long time and we can hardly move past them.
There are feelings that stay inside us for a long time and we can hardly move past them. Feelings that return again and again, even as time goes by.
One of them is guilt.
The guilt that is often born when you try with all your might for something and ultimately don't succeed.
Not because you didn't do what you could, but because that's how life brought it.
The Silence After the Loss
From the beginning of that pregnancy, when we learned the seriousness of the situation, I had learned to hide what was happening very well.
I didn't speak. I didn't announce anything. I didn't open any conversation about it.
Perhaps, deep down, I was trying to protect myself. As if I believed that if I didn't say it out loud, if I didn't share it, maybe I could avoid the pain if things didn't go well.
But when the loss came, as I describe in my journey "When the Miracle Hurts" , for a long time I walked with my head down.
I didn't want to talk.
I didn't want to look at anyone.
I felt a strange weight inside me. A fear of what others would say, as if the whole world was judging me for what happened. Or for what didn't happen.
The Thoughts That Won't Leave You Alone
And yet, that moment came.
And for years after, I wandered through my thoughts. With my guilt. With the countless "what ifs".
I wondered again and again:
Did we choose the right path? Could something have been done differently?
No one talked about it. Even today, so many years later, I feel that most people avoid this conversation.
Perhaps because they don't know what to say. Perhaps because pain makes people silent.
And yet, sometimes what you need is exactly the opposite: to be able to talk.
Not necessarily at that exact moment. Then, you might not be ready.
But at some point later, when a little time has passed and the pain becomes quieter, comes the need to say everything that stayed inside you for so long.
When the Trials Return
As if that wasn't enough, life brought other trials.
There was another pregnancy that stopped early, almost before it could begin.
It was a loss that came silently and left silently, a joy that didn't have time to blossom , and we didn't have to explain to many people what happened.
And yet, even so, the thoughts didn't leave.
Was it my previous choices to blame? Was the past demanding explanations from the present?
Even if everyone around me said that a miscarriage is often a matter of luck, my mind continued to search for answers.
When the Responsibility Seems Unbearable
And then came another experience.
A moment where we once again had to enter the process of deciding the course of a life.
And yet, I continued through a journey full of uncertainty, trying to stand on my feet.
There, the guilt and remorse grew even larger.
I only remember crying. Crying a lot. And wondering again and again: What did I do wrong?
The silence around me was even heavier. As if no one wanted to open this conversation. As if it never happened.
The only thing that comforted me during that time was my faith.
And yet, while I believed that God had forgiven me, I couldn't forgive myself.
How unfair we can be to ourselves...
When the Way You View Things Changes
For years I carried the pain inside me. The loss. The failure, as I considered it then. And the guilt.
But failure... why?
After a while, I began to understand something that I couldn't see back then.
Those decisions were not a failure.
They were the most difficult acts of love we could make at that moment, with what we knew and with what we could endure.
Sometimes what looks like "failure" when you live it, is actually the greatest heroism.
A heroism born of love. And of faith.
And perhaps then, as time passes, we can begin to forgive ourselves.