The Art of Losing Isn't Hard to Master

My husband and I visited a small country graveyard last month to look at tombstones. No, I'm not morbid; I'm married to a historian. The graveyard contained tombstones from some of the earliest settlers to this area, and walking the grass pathways, you could see the stories of hard, short lives. I was intrigued by the family plots, especially the one of a man buried between his two wives, both who died within a couple years of each other, flanked by children, most of whom died before their father.


In one area of the graveyard, there was a small tombstone marked simply "Infant" and the family name. According to my very smart spouse, it was not uncommon for parents to withhold naming a child until he or she reached the first birthday. Infant death was common, and perhaps this was a way of dealing with a hard reality.


Does naming something make it hurt more when it's lost? This makes me think of the common trend of couples not announcing the pregnancy until it "sticks" or until the pregnancy has made it through the first trimester. I've heard that about 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage during the first 12 weeks and that the amount could be even higher during the earliest weeks before a woman even knows she's pregnant.



I'm all for not going out and buying a crib the minute the home pregnancy test reads positive. But, at the same time, I don't think I could keep it to myself. I'd want my closest friends and family to know as well as to be there if I needed their support if the pregnancy didn't last.



Loss, I believe, doesn't need a name. To carve any letters into stone, even the anonymous "Infant," could not have been easy.