Happy After All

by Maisey Yates

I’m uncomfortable with babies.

I wanted to start over. I wanted to be a more interesting character.

I find it much easier to recast myself in a different role when I go somewhere new.

but it’s impossible to be a grinch when . . . flamingos.”

“Because there is no would have or could have, only what is. I do think, though, about how long I’ve loved her.”

“I named her Emma.”

IM CRYING

I haven’t said her name like that since I got here.

Especially in our time. Women were supposed to be mothers. I failed at that. It made me useless for a long time. I didn’t want to feel different, I didn’t want to be different. What was the point, after all?” She sits in silence for a moment. “But I am. I’m different, and my life is different than I planned for. Different doesn’t make it wrong, or bad, or failed. When I accepted that, I found a lot more peace.”

My Emma’s life is an unwritten story, but I can still write her into mine. The truth of what loving her means to me will underlie every syllable, every sentence.

She matters.

realize now I’m not simply looking at loss. I’m looking at lives well lived. Well loved.

I didn’t leave everything behind. I brought the pink with me. I brought that hope.

My love of her, the hope of her, came to this new world with me. Everything that’s ever healed me, hurt me, shaped me has come to this world with me.

I’ll hold her hand and speak with the confidence of time.

I was scared of what it would look like to start writing Amelia again. This

“There is nothing wrong with me.”

The way I carried a baby was wrong. The way I grieved that baby was wrong.

Freedom was something I hadn’t had in my life before.

I wanted to be selfish. Like I said, I am an oak. I don’t wish to choose to bend around anything new,

For the first time, I wonder if it’s a gift that I’m not yet a mighty oak.

“There really is nothing like girl dinner,”

“Don’t accept less for yourself than what you’d write,”

“I’m sorry,”

I can let him go. I can let that life go. It doesn’t mean letting go of Emma. It doesn’t have to.

as God intended.

I’m going to try something new. This is addicting. Taking risks. Putting myself out there.

You are in my blood. You are in my breath. You’re in my heart, and that is the most unforgivable part.”

Grieving is comforting. Because it keeps you safe.”

We choose joy. We choose each other. We choose to live. That’s what a happy ending is.

Everything is pink.

Everything is pink, and more importantly, everyone is here.

Emma is my flower girl, and as pink as everything else.

“Did you want a kiss? Or were you just looking for a power strip?” “Definitely the power strip,”