Meghan Markle had an abortion: "Losing a child is an unbearable pain"
After the miscarriage of her second child, Meghan Markle tells her story through a letter to the New York Times. The healing process begins with two simple words: "Are you okay?"
Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex and wife of Prince Harry, has released a personal opinion of her through an open letter to the New York Times regarding the loss suffered by her second child.
Meghan - who for several months has lived with Harry and Archie (the eldest son) in Los Angeles, after the sensational decision to renounce the status of senior members of the British royal family in favor of greater autonomy - has told what it feels like to lose a child and that sense of abandonment that you cannot explain. How to get up? We must learn to ask "Are you okay?"
Meghan Markle: the loss of the second child, the letter
A very long letter in which the former American actress, Meghan, dissected all of her emotions. From the very first words it is clear the sense of loss of her, a mourning that led Markle to confess her most intimate thoughts about her like a river in flood.
Meghan says that it all happened one morning in July while she, like every "normal" mother, was preparing breakfast for her eldest son Archie. Suddenly a cramp in the abdomen and that bad feeling that only women recognize and that leads you to think that you are about to lose something important.
After changing her diaper, I felt a severe cramp. I dropped to the ground with him in my arms, humming a lullaby to keep us both calm, the cheerful melody in stark contrast to my feeling that something was wrong.
I knew, as I held my first child, that I was losing the second.
Immediately after the awareness in the hospital, when Markle, followed by her husband Harry, realized that her second child was gone. Meghan's first thought was: how do you get up from this? And then that memory of a year ago.
The path to healing begins with two simple words: "Are you okay?"
In that hospital bed, Meghan recalled a simple event that, just a year earlier, she had brought her to the awareness that sometimes a simple question is enough to feel good.
I remembered a time last year when Harry and I were finishing a long tour in South Africa. I was exhausted. I was nursing our newborn baby and trying to keep a brave face in the public eye.
"Are you OK?" a reporter asked me. I answered him honestly, not knowing that what I said would resonate with so many mothers and with anyone who, in his way, suffered in silence. My impromptu response seemed to give people permission to tell their truth. But it wasn't answering honestly that helped me the most, it was the question itself. Thanks for asking, I said. Not many people have asked me if I'm okay.
Sitting in that hospital bed, watching my husband's heart break as he tried to console me, I realized that the only way to start healing is to first ask: "Are you okay?"
The pain of losing a child
Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable pain, experienced by many but few speak of. In the pain of their loss, Meghan and Harry discovered that in a room of 100 women, at least 20 of them would have had a miscarriage.
Yet despite the bewildering commonality of this pain, the conversation remains taboo, filled with (unwarranted) shame and perpetuates a cycle of lonely mourning.
Some have bravely shared their stories knowing that when one person tells the truth, he gives everyone a license to do the same.
Meghan Markle said:
We have learned that when people ask how you are and when they really listen to the answer, with an open heart and mind, the pain load often becomes lighter - for all of us.
Invited to share our pain, together we take the first steps towards healing.
So, while thinking about the next vacation to organize, we should, first of all, commit ourselves to asking others: "Are you okay?".
And however much we may disagree, however distant physically, the truth is that we are closer than ever because of all we are enduring in isolation and as a community in this forgettable year.
