Eyes Free from Fear

Whenever I was pregnant, I felt special. I was the mother of another child! I enjoyed all the extra attention. I wondered: did anyone ever wish they were me?

When I was pregnant with our son Thomas, our doctor told us he would die after birth. And a day after we met him, that’s what happened. Thomas slipped away from life while in my arms.

When we returned home from the hospital, we felt different to everyone else. We had moved into another world, trapped by aloneness and grief.

For months, friends gave us special attention, supporting us through the sorrow.

We were special, but Andy and I knew no one wanted to be us. We had nothing that others envied.

One day, it occurred to me that we did have something that others might want, though they didn’t realise it:

We were free.

We no longer worried about the worst thing imaginable happening to us. It had already arrived. And, although it was excruciatingly painful, we were still alive.

We were free of fear.

Fear can hold us back. We want to stay safe, so we’re reluctant to take risks. But what if fear is preventing us from receiving something good?

Often, the scenarios we imagine never happen. If we step out with adventurous feet, something wonderful takes place instead.

But just say the worst outcome does arrive. Is that entirely bad?

The worst happened. Thomas died. We suffered, but we learnt so much. We learnt about love. Thomas was worth all the pain. Another child couldn’t replace him. We didn’t wish we were our friends with their healthy children. We loved our son immeasurably, even though we had him with us for only a day.

Unschooling isn’t really like losing a baby—there’s no comparison. But it might feel risky. We might fear doing it because of all the imagined negative outcomes. But if we gather our courage and do it anyway, we might just discover something wonderful, something that other people might not envy because they’re not seeing life through eyes free from fear.