I am writing to dear friends I regard as part of my family. While I speak to those I know and love, maybe you’re in a similar moment.
To all those in my thoughts this day: I cannot begin to imagine the depth of your pain and sorrow.
What can we say when a perfect yet delicate child enters this world only to leave it days later when we are still adjusting to the notion that they were ever here? There are no words in our vocabulary, no neatly framed phrases, to account for such a loss. Perhaps because it seems impossible, probably because language itself stumbles here, falters in the face of something so utterly incomprehensible.
The truth we rarely speak of is that not all beginnings lead to an extended middle nor guarantee an end that feels fair. The reality of losing a newborn forces us to confront the fragility of our plans and the utter delicacy of life.
What do we say? The usual offerings seem false and empty. "It wasn't meant to be” or “God’s got bigger plans” feels like an insult, as if the universe's randomness could ever justify this pain. "You can try again" is worse, the most well-intentioned but ultimately hollow piece of advice, as though lives are replaceable, as though this child could be substituted for another.
We say these things not because they are right but because they are easy. We fear silence, gaps in conversation, and moments where nothing feels sufficient. We are uncomfortable with grief, with its enormity, with the way it reshapes a person, a family, a life.
Yet, the better offering—the more authentic thing to say—might be no words at all. It is the simple act of being present, of holding the hand that trembles with both loss and disbelief. Being present acknowledges that nothing can make this better, that the world is unfair, and that the pain will not quickly fade. It is the willingness to sit with the pain, not to rush it or try to fix it because some things are beyond repair. Some losses leave a hole so deep that our human inclination to fill it is futile and cruel.
What is left is to bear witness, to say, "I see you, I feel this with you, and I am not afraid of your grief." In the end, the grieving parents may need most not the promise that things will get better—because, at this moment, that is unfathomable—but rather the assurance that they are not alone in their suffering. To be seen in the abyss is the greatest gift we can offer.
When the condolences have faded, and the world moves on as it always does, these two people will remain tethered to love and loss, two sides of the same coin they must carry forever. The weight of it will shift, as all grief does, but it will never disappear.
We do not know how to speak to the loss of a newborn because the loss itself feels beyond language. What words can capture a life that ended before it began, a promise that dissolved before it could take shape? Perhaps it is the understanding that, sometimes, there are no right words—and that silence, too, can be a form of love.
Every bereaved parent should have a friend like you, to so sensitively address such a loss with compassion and love. Bless you.