Section 4 Special losses
Vignette
A stillbirth is a strange loss. There never really is a child, merely an almost-born baby, an exhalation frozen in air. Still birth: the mother mourns what might have been and what was, with nothing in between. She’s murmured words into her lap; she’s given this being its name; she’s imagined its future. In the rosy evolution of her fertility, her miracle is without effort. As though awaiting the first great burst of the cosmos, she bathes in love. Nothing could be simpler—and nothing harder to let go.
Purpose: The purpose of this section is to familiarize students with patients’ experiences of special instances of death and grieving, specifically, relating to the life cycle and to breast cancer. |
