Her Name Would Have Been Sophie
3 mins read

Her Name Would Have Been Sophie

I had a daughter once.

At least that’s what my heart told me.

A beautiful girl with no face, who would have been all that I am, and everything I’m not.

Her name would have been Sophie.

To this day, I don’t know why that name came to me. While lovely, I’d never paid it much consideration. Maybe it was a matter of “psychic roots” – the influence of coincidence and serendipity on genealogical research; my discovering only recently that Sophia was the name of my great-great-grandmother. But I do remember how it came to me: quick, like lightening, in the middle of a dream two years after the end of a pregnancy that came and went just as fast. And ever since that night, whenever I find myself thinking about the tiny soul that curled up next to my heart, if only for a short time, the name comes to mind, fleeting, yet familiar.

Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. If there’s anything I have come to believe about life, it’s that everything happens for a reason. Maybe my mind needed something beautiful to erase the memory of the day that I can’t really remember, yet can’t quite forget. This is a lovely thought. I can accept that.

But I can’t accept the small hole that lingers. The hole that will always linger. It doesn’t stop the dangerous thought that slams into me when I least expect it- what if.

Maybe that’s what this is: a musing. A diary entry I could never bring myself to write. The calamine my heart has needed, because no matter the time that passes, no matter the incredible beauty of life I am graced with since, the hole from that loss – the loss of a life that could have been – is a small pain all of its own.

I’ve experienced my share of loss in life. Of people. Of things. Of opportunities. And while yes they can be tough, it has been this loss that’s been the most difficult to shake. I know it was only a few weeks, but that doesn’t stop me from wondering what could have been every year the day rolls around her just forming, fast beating heart, was separated from mine.

It’s a loss thats hard to describe. A unique ache all its own. It has no memories to curl up with when the wince kicks in; no first breaths, birthdays, or skinned knees to hold onto.

Or maybe I just did…

I had a daughter once.

Or would have, had everything worked out the way it was supposed to. But it didn’t, and that’s all I have to say about that.

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