Day Three Dear Abby - Can't You Hear Us?

Dear Abby,


I can't help but notice that you haven't retracted or apologized for your cruel and thoughtless column on June 7th. Stillborn is still born. We love our children. We will love them with our whole hearts until the day we die.


Here's the thing Dear Abby, you are not alone in your ignorance. And that's what makes your comments sting all the more. There are countless people as cruel as you who think still births don't count. Look at our current administration. They refuse to count still births amount the detained immigrants as actual deaths. But they are deaths. And they do count. My husband's own stepmother has decreed to the family that no one is allowed to mention my daughter. That it doesn't matter.


As loss parents we fight EVERY SINGLE DAY to break the silence. We want - no, we need -  to shatter the silence around stillbirths so that we may openly grieve. We are tired of crying in the shower or the car. All alone so no one can see us. So no one like you can judge us or try to instill a timeline on our grief. We try to shatter the silence, to remember our children, to carry their memories forward every day.


Congratulations, you just made that battle harder.


I hope you never know the soul crushing grief of losing a child. I hope you never know what it's like to move through the days, years, decades with a constant ache for your missing child. But if  you ever do, I hope your grief is met with more grace and love than you showed us in your column.




Sarah Elvin - Hannah's Mom

Dear Abby

Dear Abby,


I'm writing again because you still haven't acknowledged the hurt you caused the loss community with your heartless reply to "Crystal" on June 7, 2019.


You seem to think a still birth, the loss of a beloved child, is something that can be gotten over. Well, I am here to tell you how very wrong you are.


Imagine never knowing the color of your child's eyes. The sound of their voice. The color of their hair. Imagine, after carrying a much loved, much wanted child for 9 months only to give birth to a silent room. No new born cries. No congratulations. Just silence. And a soul crushing grief.


Now imagine carrying that grief day after day and instead of support you are told your lifestyle is morbid. That you should seek counseling. That you should be over it. Basically, being told your grief is misplaced and wrong.


Let me tell you what years of therapy after the loss of my daughter have taught me. My grief, the same grief that all loss parents carry day in and day out is normal. It's expected. It's ok. We aren't morbid as you suggested. We are parents that will love our children, living and dead until the day we die. There is no timeframe for our grief. It doesn't have to end because it makes you or other uncomfortable. We don't need you or anyone else to say "Time's Up, Grieiving Over."


What we need is support. And love and compassion. We need to know that YOU know our babies mattered. We need to hear their names on someone else's lips besides our own. To know the world has not forgotten them. We love them. We will always love them.


And you should be ashamed of your response.


Hannah's Mom

Fuck You Dear Abby

**This was written in a fit of rage at Dear Abby’s response to abletter in June 7th. I won’t be sharing her letter here, because it sucks and it doesn’t need anymore hit than it will already get.**

Dear Abby,

You should be ashamed of yourself. Your advice to Crystal could not be more off base. Instead of shaming the Aunt for grieving the loss of her much loved child, you should have shamed the family that failed to support her. That the Aunt still mourns her daughter after all this time is completely normal. To say this child never lived is cruel and completely wrong. For 9 months that baby girl lived, right under her mother’s heart. That mother felt her every kick and turn, knew the pattern of her days and nights and  knew what foods she liked and what food she didn’t. For nine months that mother dreamed and planned and loved her baby girl. And now that poor mother has to live everyday not knowing the sound of her daughter’s voice or the color of her hair. She’ll never watch her first steps, or graduations. Never see her make friends or get her first job; a whole lifetime was lost when her daughter was still born. I know because I am that mother. I am that mother and I am telling you that you owe this Aunt and all parents of stillborn children an apology. We walk this earth everyday carrying a weight grief that you cannot imagine. A shadow of sorrow behind every smile.

Hannah’s Mom

PS: Every Nov 2nd I make a birthday cake for my silent child. And we sing and remember her with love.