Touching Hope, Sally

Touching Hope.
Sally.
Photograph.

:::

about the piece.
Sally describes the photograph, "This is a picture I took just a few weeks after I had Hope. Not long after she was born, I had my favourite photo of her made in to a canvas print for my wall and when it first arrived, I couldn't stop touching it. I was like that with all photos of Hope initially. I would just run my fingers over them and try to remember running my fingers over her soft, cool face. Especially my lap top screen, which I had a photo of her as my screensaver on.

"It seemed so pathetic and sad to be touching photos, touching my laptop screen, touching a canvas print to try and remember how it felt to touch her, but that was all I had and all I still have. Just one of my many, slightly crazy, grief behaviours that only other grieving mothers and fathers will ever understand. I guess it is like sniffing their clothes and blankets, trying to still drink them in when the smell has clearly already long faded.

"I guess I just thought for a website that is for and about dead babies, we don't always see a lot of the dead babies themselves. So this is my photo, Touching Hope."

about the contributor.
Sally is a mother to her lost daughter Hope, stillborn at 40 weeks and 5 days in August 2008 and her brand new son Angus, born alive and screaming in November 2009. She maintains the blog Tuesday's Hope.

Always Hope, Sally

Always Hope
by Sally

watching tv,
reading the paper,
walking the dog,
hope

eating my breakfast,
conversation with a clueless friend,
watering the garden,
hope

having a shower,
buying meat at the butcher,
singing in the car,
hope

running a marathon (if I could),
feeding my boy,
dinner with friends,
hope

a nap on the couch,
reading a blog,
doing the laundry,
hope

feeling happy,
feeling sad,
feeling empty,
hope

staring at the wall,
staring at nothing,
staring at everything,
hope

staring
dozing
walking
eating
writing
reading
cleaning
standing
laying
talking
jumping
loving
living

hope.

she's just always there.

:::

about the poem.
In Sally's words, "I wrote this poem after realising that every single thing I do in my life now, I am thinking about my lost daughter, and it seems even more profound now that my living son is in my life. It doesn't always have to be obvious like looking at her photo, writing about her, going through her memory box - she is just always on my mind and heavy on my heart. Every thing I do, every decision I make, every step I take is coloured by her absence. I miss her."

about the poet.
Sally is a mother to her lost daughter Hope, stillborn at 40 weeks and 5 days in August 2008 and her brand new son Angus, born alive and screaming in November 2009. She maintains the blog Tuesday's Hope.