Author: 
Danielle (a)
ID: 
005a
Type of Post: 
comment
Keywords: 
Jewish, Yom Kippur
Religious Affiliation: 
Jewish
Type of Loss: 
stillbirth (plus another loss of baby)
Codes (Bakker): 
Age at time of post: 
unknown
Living children at time of post?: 
unknown
Time Since Loss: 
1 year, 10 months (Nov/Dec 2008)
Months since loss (at time of post): 
22
Gender: 
F
Images in Post: 
NA
Date of Post: 
9/7/2010
Date of Access: 
6/15/2012
Number of Comments: 
NA
URL of post: 
http://www.glowinthewoods.com/home/2010/9/7/milagros.html
Author blog title: 
unknown

Judaism didn't do much for me after we lost either of our babies- no explanations, no healing rituals. In fact, they were considered never to have been alive in the Jewish tradition, so technically there were no deaths to mourn. I do, however, light candles and say kaddish for them at Yom Kippur and on the anniversaries of their deaths (but on the secular calendar, not the Jewish one.) I found out recently that my mother does, too, and although we have done all our grieving separately, I am touched that this is one place in which we have come together.

Much more comforting to me has been the concept of the mizuko jizo. When I came home from the hospital that first time, I spent hours blindly googling I don't even know what (probably versions of "Why did my baby die?"), and came across the story of the mizuko, which I had read before and forgotten. It was, and still is, the only explanation of who and what we lost that makes sense to me, and has a lot to do with why I was able to make some peace with scattering Kai's ashes in the water. It's also why Kai is named Kai, instead of the name he would have had had he been born screaming.

I have two beautiful jizos on my night table- one, a small statue, was a gift from Barbara. The other was painted for me by you. Sometimes I feel that they are as close as I will ever get to having a picture of my family by my bedside.

Codes (Paris): 
Comments (Bakker): 

Author found meaning in a religious tradition outside of her own; her own religious tradition was less meaningful