Peace after pain
Heartache lingers, but parents find comfort
KATHRYN Mazylis will never get a kiss from her little boy, Baxter.
She won’t see him take his first steps, or take him to his first day at school, or see him play his first game of football.
All those little milestones and a future which would never be were cruelly stripped away from Kathryn and her husband Daniel two years ago when Baxter was ‘‘born sleeping’’ at 30 weeks.
The pain and i ncurable heartache of that loss doesn’t diminish as time goes on.
But as an important part of the healing proc e s s , the Torquay couple gathered with others in Rippleside Park yesterday to commemorate International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day with the second annual Walk to Remember.
About 200 people came from all over the Geelong region for the event, each with their own personal story of grief, forging friendships through a common bond of tragedy.
It wasn’t just the loss of Baxter that shattered Kathryn and Daniel — fertility problems have meant they have lost an unimaginable eight babies in the past three years.
‘‘ I fell into a dark, yucky place after we had him,’’ Kathryn said.
‘‘ It was just one of those rollercoasters where it was easy to fall into a really negative place, but I just refused to let his birth be something that ruined our lives — he made me a better mum to Max (Kathryn’s 11-year-old son) and a better wife and you just realise that nothing is a given.’’
On that horrible night two years ago, there were five other stillbirths delivered at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, and 19 that week.
It is a widespread issue that is estimated to touch one person in four, but tends to be swept under the carpet.
‘‘At the start I didn’t want to say much because I didn’t want to make other people feel uncomfortable but something like this day, when you realise how many people it affects, is what really got me,’’ Kathryn said.
‘‘When you come to things l i ke this, it makes you realise you are part of a group that you never wanted to be a part of but it’s the most amazing group you could be a part of.’’
The event is one of several support services offered to people, by local group HOPE Bereavement Care, who have experienced the sudden or unexpected death of a child.
A counsellor with the group, Tracey Paech, said: ‘ ‘ O n e o f the unique dynamics about grieving the loss of a child or a baby is it is really a grief of the fu- ture rather than a grief of the past.’’
It is that loss of hopes, dreams and visions of the future — what would have been — that hurts most, says Kathryn.
‘‘ You still get shut down by people who tell you to get over it, or tell you ‘God had plans’ — the well- meaning comments that people make that usually I’m good at coping with, but over the last few weeks I haven’t been too good at hearing,’’ she said.
Kathryn and Daniel commemorated the second anniversary of Baxter’s passing recently with a trip to the Melbourne Zoo.
They sat in the butterfly enclosure and drank in the simple pleasures that their son will never experience.
‘‘I found peace with it to a degree — not that it doesn’t hurt and not that I don’t sleep with his crystal next to my bed and all those little things.
‘‘But you make peace with what you do have and try and keep them alive as much as you can,’’ Kathryn said.