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Reflections from the checkout line.


posted by Once A Mother on , , ,

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I don’t live in your world...
You stand in front of me smiling, a newborn girl tight at your chest in the same baby wrap that I had researched and planned to use.

I don’t live in your world...
I don’t get to answer strangers asking “How old is she?”
Instead I struggle to answer when asked, “Do you have any kids?”

I don’t live in your world...
You shrug off the softness at your middle as a badge of courage with a smile.
“Baby weight,” people assume when they look at you.
“She let herself go,” they judge, when looking at me.

I don’t live in your world...
You say, “They’re nice at this age aren’t they?”
And a woman behind you jokes, “Just wait till they get older.”
My child never got older, I wouldn’t know.

I don’t live in your world...
You spend your days with trips to the baby gym, the pediatrician, a new mother’s group.
I spend mine at her graveside, in a perpetual state of shock.

I don’t live in your world...
Nor in that of the naĂŻve and child free. Those who don’t know what it is to have to bury your child, or that in this day and age, it’s even a possibility.

I don’t live in your world...
~Kristin Binder

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