When I found out that our unborn baby was not likely to live after birth, I cried. I cried continuously for days, even weeks. The tears kept coming. How can one person have so many tears inside her?

Then slowly I began to accept the situation. Friends asked me how I was and I said, to their great relief, “I’m doing fine!” I could once again smile and talk and sound optimistic about the future. “Oh you’re a saint,” they said. “We’d never be able to handle such a situation as well as you.”

But I didn’t feel like a saint. I didn’t want to be a saint. All I wanted was my child. And the tears were still there, locked away inside me.

There were some days when I failed to push my fears to the back of my mind, when it was difficult to trust God, when I was near despair, when the tears wouldn’t stay hidden away. Often these days coincided with antenatal check-ups.  I’d come home from my appointment with a doctor who wouldn’t give me any hope, and I’d think, “How will I survive if my baby dies? How will I be able to hold my dead baby in my arms? How will I be able to bury him?”

On those days I went to my safe place, a place where I could retreat from the world and be alone, and I’d cry away from everyone’s sight. There, I could admit I was little and scared. No one could see me. I could stop pretending I had everything under control. In this place I could cry out to God for help and let those tears fall freely… fall freely into the water.

Do you have your own safe place, a place where you don’t have to be brave, a place where you feel you can let the tears flow?

Please share my story The Bath and other grief stories at my blog, Sue Elvis Writes