Life After Miscarriage: What Unthinkable Loss Taught Me About the "Perfect" Family
What does it really mean to let go? When we turned this question over to our editors and readers, their responses proved that grief, catharsis, and rebirth come in all forms—whether it’s finally moving on from a failed relationship, rebuilding oneself after a painful trauma, or quietly saying goodbye to the person you once were. Our series, Letting Go, highlights these compelling and complicated stories. Below: Reader Josephine Atluri shares what experiencing miscarriage, infertility, and illness ultimately taught her about her own resilience.
The beginning of our love story was conventional—friends first, a love professed but rejected, other relationships pursued and ended, and the realization that we were meant to be together forever. That is exactly how it went down. But what happens when life gets in the way and throws a wrench in your well-conceived plans?
During my last year in college, my boyfriend and I dealt with an unexpected illness. Over the course of that year, and for a long time afterward, we had to face the prospect that there would be no tomorrow for us as a couple. All those plans that I had disappeared and all that existed was today. When it was all said and done and it was time to rebuild our lives, I found we couldn’t go back to the path we were on before as too much had changed.