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I just loved this post. I too am an atheist and feel as though there is something wrong with me when I don't feel comfort by religious cliché-type sentiments. It's very hard at times to try to breathe under the weight of the grief and recover from the shock of the slap of religious platitudes. I personally feel it would do my 'experience' some injustice by resigning it all up to some overlooking-righteous-yet loving and good-bestower of life (for you, but not YOU)and death (oops gotta take YOU back because of my super complex and secret plan)person/entity.

Most of [my would-be letters to friends and family] are "thank-you" notes:

...

Dear Catholic friends and relatives,
if any of you speak of God's so-called "plan" or say it was or wasn't meant to be one more time, I'm going to shove some of my own "myterious ways" up your f-ing asses.

...

I dont know why I haven't done this before, that felt GREAT!

Karma. An eye for an eye. I've been thinking about that, too. That because my body was the vessel, it must be somehow my fault, even though I almost died delivering the 2nd of my lost twins, 3 weeks apart, it's may fault they died, because I was complaining about the cost of a triple stroller, the need for a triple stroller, scared of taking care of 3 children under the age of 3 basically by myself since Hubs works 70 hrs a week, etc, etc...

I've come across people who have outright declared Liam's spiritual fate. Some have called him an angel, some said he was needed in heaven, others said that his existence was nothing more than a medical mishap. None of it bothers me. Well, the last one, perhaps, but only because it was used to minimize. That's beside the point.

Someone just said the same thing to me last week. ["God only makes perfect, so my daughter must not have been perfect and He knew it. That is why he took her."] I am two and a half years out and I still didn't know what to say. What I wanted to say is that if God only makes perfect, how could she be anything but, despite her death.

This may sound horrible, but I'm maybe especially ill-equipped to deal with more "normal" losses now. My grandmother died last year, and I found myself surrounded by relatives talking about miracles and faith and about how beautiful her death was. I had a hard time grieving for her with my family because I was a) jealous of her death - why couldn't my son have a peaceful death after a long and full life? and b) very conscious of and sensitive to the use of the word "miracle." I had to keep holding back the snarls, which meant I wasn't much help to my mom and family for a while.

A friend (an ex-friend?) wrote to me in the winter of 2008 about how she was trying to forgive me for not writing and talking to her more. I wrote back, explaining that I wasn't not communicating with her because I was mad at her (after several years of not communicating at all, I hadn't thought much about her at all) but because my baby had died. I was nice about it even though I didn't want to be.

She sent me almost an identical message - "Why don't you talk to me anymore?" - a couple months ago. And what I wanted to write back was this:

Baby angels and, more especially, sentimental baby angel poetry, drove me absolutely up the wall the first few months after Teddy died. Partly because I didn't and couldn't buy into the idea that my baby is an angel, and partly because deep grief isn't a time for bad poetry. It's a time when you bring out the good stuff.

This post was something I really needed to read - it helped to read your perspective and soak up your thoughts - I think for many of us coming from faith communities, there's the implication that we are supposed to learn & grow from loss. Even when things aren't said, sometimes they are felt.

I sit in the sanctuary. It is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year on the Jewish calendar. The year when even the least observant Jew can be seen in a synagogue.

I am not the least observant Jew… Not really possible with a husband who is studying to become a rabbi. Not really possible with the amount of Jewish tradition I was raised with. Not really possible with Polish grandparents who survived the Holocaust. Not really possible with the number of Jewish food calories I have consumed in 38 years.