The Due Date That Came and Went

There is a date you memorise without trying. The day they tell you your baby is due. I knew mine by heart within minutes. I imagined the weather that week, what the hospital room might look like, who would be waiting outside. The whole future arranged itself around that one square on the calendar.

We lost our daughter before she could be born. In the weeks after, time felt strange and shapeless, but that date kept moving toward me anyway, steady as anything. I watched it approach with a kind of dread I couldn't explain to anyone. It was the day she was supposed to arrive, and now it was just a day.

When it finally came, the morning was completely ordinary. The milk was delivered. A neighbour's radio played downstairs. The world had no idea that this was the day my arms were supposed to be full. I sat by the window for a long time, not crying, just being with her in the only way I could.

My husband took the day off without me asking. He didn't try to fix anything or talk me out of my sadness. He just stayed close. In the evening we cooked her something — a small sweet dish, kheer, the way you might make for a child's first taste. We didn't eat much. But it felt right to mark the day as hers.

I had braced myself to feel only emptiness. Instead I felt her, somehow, more clearly than I had in weeks. The date came and went, and I let it mean something, because she meant everything. That gave the day a shape I could hold.

If a due date is coming toward you and you are afraid of it, you do not have to pretend it is just another day. You are allowed to take the day off, to stay in bed, to light a lamp, to do nothing at all. There is no wrong way to honour a date that holds so much.

Every year, when that day comes around again, I notice it. I have stopped fearing it. It is hers, and quietly, gently, I let myself remember the daughter I carried and the love that never had anywhere to land but stayed with me regardless.