Another Year…Without You

I must admit, I have never been a great fan of New Year’s Eve. Even as a child I would hide somewhere so that those last moments of the old one would pass without me. I hated the opening noises of the champagne bottle and even the fact that I was not go to bed early could not make up for my being afraid of the new year. Later I understood that this was and is my character, I can hardly let the old things go, no matter how I look forward to the new one (if at all). But normally I don’t look forward to the New Year.

This has been ever so true since I lost my baby. I remember that 31st December 5 years ago. I refused to do anything merry at all. I wanted to avoid midnight and went to sleep but my family didn’t let me, so they woke me up, thus I got angry and disappointed. There was nothing for me to be happy about. I felt that everything, truly everything that was meaningful, important and so precious was in the days and months of the old year. So the last minutes of the year took them away, just as they took away a part of me, my former self. I also wanted to go with them. I don’t know how it is for you but since then it’s been a completely new world and I’m still not pretty sure where I belong. But there are very few things I look forward to.

Since then my mental New Year’s calendar has become fairly full with significant dates, for almost each months of the year. I keep remembering the last period before my pregnancy in February, then how I found it out, it takes all March, the blissful and truly blessed Easter that year, with all the hopes and dreams, then for May hospital, Mothers’ Day (I haven’t been able to celebrate it since then), and Pentecost … the longest and most tragic night of my whole life. Then comes November, the time of the expected birth, the 11th. And for me the weeks leading up to Christmas become true nightmare. I can never ever forget about these landmarks.

For me the new year simply means another year without my son. The sixth one now. And all the rest is just secondary. There is the growing list of lost possibilities, first would-be schoolyear, another sad birthday, the real one and then when it was supposed to happen. Lost smiles, hugs, kisses lost even before they could have been made. What would he be like here? What is he like? – I always correct myself. I still think, you see, he is there sitting and smiling on one of the clouds in the blue sky. Would he be happy with me as his mom? Could he be proud of me? Because I am so blessed that he is part of me, my life, my whole existence.

At this time of the year I must face again the cruelty of time. How dare it pass, how … when I just want to cling to those last hours together way back then. Why can’t I just go back? Why always the other direction? I have no answers. And I have no roadmap for the New Year 2016 either. I just have that mental schedule. I wish for all of us that we could find ways to send our eternal love every single day to those beautiful children we miss so much. Because this is the only certainty we have. Until the end of our days here, for sure.

May the New Year bring us hope, serenity and strength to face each new day in 2016.

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Éva Zsák

Éva Zsák is 39. She lives in Hungary and Italy. She is a teacher and an interpreter, but now also a medical school student. Her little angel, Peter is her only child. He died five years ago due to a premature rupture of membranes. This experience changed her life completely. She started to learn about grief and child-loss and the importance of the human factor in doctor-patient relationships. She likes reading, poetry, and literature in general.