To my husband, as you love me through miscarriage:

I need you mightily in this season of grief.

Our love is one. This baby we are mourning is ours in perfect togetherness.

And yet still, our walks through this grief are probably going to differ. We may absorb the initial shock and tremors in sameness, buried in one another’s arms. But as we process forward, it’s likely we’ll have slightly different paths through our grief. You may move toward sunshine again with a little more swiftness. I may dwell in the dark for longer. Our stories in loving and losing this child are tightly bound and woven, but they’re also separate. We won’t walk through the grieving in exactly the same way, and that’s OK. Just as long as we walk together.

I need you mightily.

You see, from the moment this baby was just a maybe and then a yes, it has never left me, and I have never left it. I carried our child with so much love and hope. I became acutely aware and vigilant over every change of my body as it made way for this new life. No matter what I may have been doing or saying outwardly, inwardly every thought and prayer has belonged to our baby. When I’ve slept, I’ve often dreamed of our child. When I’ve awoken, it has been my very first thought. I have cradled our baby inside my body, and my soul knows it even if my arms do not. My love, we have lost this, our precious child.

I need you mightily.

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My body and my spirit together feel broken. I am lost. I am raw. I am reeling. A stifling emptiness and longing make the air hard to breathe. Heavy tears storm from me one moment, and then I sit in dark dry stillness the next. I feel numb. And I feel everything. And oh, the everything . . . what my body has gone through physically, the trauma of the loss, the voices in my head, the voices of everyone else, the unrelenting pain of this aching grief . . . I am crushed under the weight of it all. Even though I know it to be untrue, I’m battling feelings of fault, I feel less. I get lost in the middle of the Google night searches for answers. My heart is shouting and pounding Why? to God. I’m not sure how to speak all my words, how to express the hollowness. I feel alone.

Sometimes I wonder if you know how deep the hurt is cutting. I’ve been swallowed up by a heavy fog—can you still see me?

I need you mightily.

I need your patience as the grief lingers.

I need you to see my empty eyes across the room and pull me into your shoulder.

I need you to speak to me of your own heartache.

I need your grace when the grief is angry.

I need your forgiveness when I’m so lost in my hurt that I forget yours.

I need your tenderness and caretaking.

I need your strength and your arms when the grief buckles me.

I need you to know that this loss, this child, will never fully leave me.

I need you to give me time.

I need you to watch that I don’t stay too long in the alone.

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I need you to help me to talk to friends who’ve known this loss.

I need you to shelter me on the days it catches me off guard and washes over me again.

I need you to whisper, “I know” and “I’m here.”

I need you to point me toward hope again.

I need you to validate this loss that the world may not see—tell me our baby matters, that what I’ve been through physically matters, that our story and our sorrow matters.

I need your steady love.

I need you mightily.

I know you are aching too. Please know that I see it. I am trying to answer your heartache, and it tears me apart to see your hurt. And, I know it undoes you to see mine. Please keep finding me, keep reaching for my hand through this cloud. Hold me close in togetherness, even if our journey through the grieving is different.

My sweet husband, I need you mightily.