I stood beside her c🇴ffin, trying to stay strong as my hands trembled, knowing our unborn child rested within her—when a sudden movement from her belly shattered the silence, turning grief into sh🇴ck as cries for doctors erupted around me.
There’s a version of this story I used to tell myself in the weeks after it happened—a cleaner version, one where everything lined up in a way that made sense, where cause led neatly to effect and pain had a purpose you could point to. But the truth, the real version, is messier than that. It loops back on itself, gets stuck in certain moments, skips others entirely, and leaves you holding pieces that don’t quite fit together no matter how long you stare at them.
It starts in a room that smelled like lilies.
