The Light That Connects Us

Every year, on October 15th, I pause for an hour to join the Wave of Light - a moment of global remembrance for babies who are loved but not here.

This ritual of profound connection and reflection has become one of the most sacred moments in my year. It’s not just about loss, but about gaining a pass to an incredible community that has - without even knowing it - carried me through the past decade.

The first time I ever wrote about Poppy was two years after she had died. I had never heard of Baby Loss Awareness Week before, or the Wave of Light, but I came across it on Instagram and was blown away by the beauty and bravery of a community I didn’t even know I was looking for.

I had never shared my experience of having Poppy anywhere on social media, only with the closest of friends.
And I had never written anything about her before.

Those first tentative words, inspired by my unexpected discovery of these brave, bereaved parents and their beautiful babies, allowed me to let go of what I’d been trying to do for so long - hide my experience in silence and shame - and instead lean into my love and pride, honour the memory of my forever-loved little girl, and embrace how much the experience of having her had changed me.

I was desperate to allow this love and pride to lead me back to a newer, better version of the person I’d been before. Broken, but rebuilt with beauty and purpose and a deeper understanding of what life is about and how to make it meaningful.

I just didn’t know how.

The ‘How’ I gradually realised, for me, was through authentic conversations. Connection. Community.

It was by sharing more, writing more, reaching out more - and from a more honest, truthful place than I had ever done in my life.

Having stepped away from writing books because I didn’t want to lose myself in a fictional world that would enable me to sidestep my grief, I realised that I wanted to show up as my true self.

Not as a “brand”, a glossy instagram photo, or as an “author” - just broken-but-brave me.

I then needed to work out how to do that. How to take this new me and return to the world.

After two years of being in my own head, I knew I wanted to surround myself with beloved people who could help bring me back to myself.

So I went back to my roots (I was a magazine journalist before I was an author) nd developed an online ’zine called Triplemelt with two incredible friends.

There were three of us, and the site focused on three-minute pieces about fashion, beauty, and books - our three specialities. Robyn, an ex–beauty PR, took on beauty; Ashling, a stylist and editor, covered fashion, home and lifestyle; and as an author and bookworm, I focused on book reviews and think pieces.

It was a joyful time of distraction, joy and reawakening that gave me a purpose - a reason to leave the house, to feel normal again, to step back into the world.

But gradually, the business began developing into something bigger than I could cope with: organising events, endless London trips, business plans and exciting collaborations - all supposed markers of “success”.

Yet the more those elements increased, the more I realised all I wanted was to write honestly and meaningfully about life - not hide behind the gloss and glamour of perfect Instagram squares and captions proclaiming “exciting news.”

That truth became clear when I wrote about Baby Loss Awareness Week and what it meant to me within the community we’d built.

My voice was quiet - it barely made a ripple compared to the articles and books I’d written before - but I knew it was the most important and impactful thing I’d ever written. Not to anyone else, but to me.

The instagram post allowed me to acknowledge what I’d been through, to let go of the shame and silence, and to share with strangers this seismic experience I’d hidden from the world. To show up as the real me - not the one I’d been presenting. The one who hid her grief at home.

It was petrifying sending that post into the world. But the Wave of Light had infused me with a sense of strength through shared experience.

Every post I’d read during that week had gifted me courage, and I will be forever grateful to every post that coaxed me out of my paralysing silence with the power of their love and pride for their babies.

“Every post I’d read during that week had gifted me courage.”

Then, I fell pregnant with my rainbow baby, Rex.

After three years of grief, fear, and longing, that positive test brought both overwhelming love and paralysing anxiety.

As anyone who has experienced pregnancy after loss will know, it is an incredibly complex time - equal parts hope and terror.

I immediately knew I had to step away from anything that required more than I could give. So I told my friends at Triplemelt that I needed to focus entirely on bringing this baby home. I adored that business and those women, but I also knew I was moving closer to being able to write about my experience in a way that might help other people too.

I had come up with a book title a few months before, and while I wasn’t ready to write it while pregnant, I knew the time was drawing near when I would be.

Just as I had after Poppy died, pregnancy after loss made me batten down the hatches once again - to retreat, step off the treadmill of the version of life we’re sold as “success,” and instead focus on bringing my baby into the world and into our home.

Then, slowly and purposefully, I began to articulate on paper, in a way that felt right to me, the story I needed to tell.

A story that would one day, hopefully, reach the hands of other people who might need it, too.

“Just as I had after Poppy died, pregnancy after loss made me batten down the hatches once again.”

I will always be grateful for Baby Loss Awareness Week because it allowed me to find the courage to share my experience and not feel alone - to begin to talk about Poppy, to find my voice, and my way of expressing my love for her.

Two years later, it led me to begin This Wasn’t Meant to Happen.

Every year since then, I have posted during Baby Loss Awareness Week and the Wave of Light in the hope that my words might inspire someone else - someone hiding behind the squares - to feel seen, and perhaps to be brave enough to share their baby and their journey too.

Not necessarily online, but with a friend, a counsellor, a loved one.

This week, eight years on from that first post, my words are more visible than ever through my novel and the advocacy it has brought me: from podcasts and articles to instagram posts like my collaboration with the Department of Health and Social Care to raise awareness of baby loss certificates.

I am so proud of this journey, and of where it has led me because of Poppy.

But honestly, I have never felt more visible - more seen - than when I first shared her quietly, in the safest space I had created, after being inspired by the bravery and rebellious love of bereaved parents talking about their babies and their experiences during my first Baby Loss Awareness Week eight years ago.

“Our words and our stories are important because we own them.”

It doesn’t matter how big a platform we have. Our words and our stories are important because we own them. They are ours.
We are their guards, fiercely shaping and protecting them and choosing how we put them out in the world.

Sharing our stories allows us to have the freedom to live authentically and share our truth.
To not hide.
To not feel marginalised by a world that finds grief “too sad” or “too tragic” to witness.
But we don’t have to do it on the internet, or on TV, radio, or podcasts for them to matter.

I know I was as much of a mother to Poppy when talking to friends and family, and in the words I wrote alone in my room with no audience, as I am now.

There is no right or wrong way of living our grief, our stories, our truth - only grace and power in telling them to who we want and when we are ready

If I can do anything this week, it is to urge you: however you navigate your grief, know that it is yours, to do with what you want.

“You don’t have to speak loudly to be heard. Your story matters, and your experience is shared. Quietly and determinedly is courageous, too.”

You are seen by all of us who know this place where you are. You don’t have to speak loudly to be heard. Just know that your story matters. Your experience is shared. Quietly and determinedly is courageous, too.

This community - and those who support us - who are speaking up, will be lighting our candles tonight not just for our babies, but for yours too - for those who are silent, still suffering, still trying to survive.

Because we want to know that even when you are alone, there is support, love, and company - not solitude.

We are with you every day, every week, every year, forever - not just from the 8th to the 15th.

This community is as everlasting as our love for our babies is.

“We are lighting our candles not just for our babies, but for yours too.”

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So tonight, I will be lighting my candle proudly once again, knowing just what Poppy, and this place, have given me - the power to connect authentically and honestly from the broken pieces of my heart, and to share the light - the gold - that flickers within us all and that has been ignited by our shared love and loss.

With love and light,