Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle has revealed that she and Prince Harry suffered a miscarriage in July. In an oped for The New York Times, she lays out what she went through and the need for kindness.
"It was a July morning that began as ordinarily as any other day: Make breakfast. Feed the dogs. Take vitamins. Find that missing sock. Pick up the rogue crayon that rolled under the table... After changing his diaper, I felt a sharp cramp. I dropped to the floor with him in my arms, humming a lullaby to keep us both calm, the cheerful tune a stark contrast to my sense that something was not right. "
"I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second."
She talks about her hospital stay and the tears she Harry shed for their unborn child.
During a tour of South Africa, a new mother, struggling to keep it together, she was asked a question that resonated across the world, "Are You Doing Okay?"
In the oped she recalls that moment and says it's not her answer but the question that deserves attention. She speaks about healing, and says it begins with that question, "Are you OK?"
Talking about the devastating impact of the pandemic, and of race related crime in the United States, she writes about divisions and about loneliness.
"A young woman named Breonna Taylor goes to sleep, just as she’s done every night before, but she doesn’t live to see the morning because a police raid turns horribly wrong. George Floyd leaves a convenience store, not realizing he will take his last breath under the weight of someone’s knee, and in his final moments, calls out for his mom. Peaceful protests become violent. Health rapidly shifts to sickness. In places where there was once community, there is now division."
"That polarization, coupled with the social isolation required to fight this pandemic, has left us feeling more alone than ever."
Unbearable Grief and Taboo
She writes about her grief not being just her own. "In the pain of our loss, my husband and I discovered that in a room of 100 women, 10 to 20 of them will have suffered from miscarriage.
Yet despite the staggering commonality of this pain, the conversation remains taboo, riddled with (unwarranted) shame, and perpetuating a cycle of solitary mourning.
Meghan Markle extols us all to look around, and ask, "Are you OK?"
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