In a text written for the New York Times, Meghan Markle tells of an intimate drama that occurred in the middle of summer. Last July, she had a miscarriage.
An announcement that shocked many people. Now settled in Los Angeles, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry seemed free from the straitjacket of the royal family and happy as ever. Yet, in the middle of summer, the couple had to recover from an intimate drama. Last July, the Duchess of Sussex had a miscarriage, as she revealed on November 25 in a text she wrote for the New York Times, entitled “The Losses We Share”.
“It was a July morning that started as normally as any other day: making breakfast. Feed the dogs. Take vitamins”, begins the 39-year-old woman, before unveiling a few lines later the terrible episode. “After changing my (son’s) diaper, I felt a strong cramp. I let myself fall to the floor with him in my arms, humming a lullaby to keep us both calm, the joyful melody contrasting sharply with my feeling that something was wrong. I knew as I grabbed my firstborn that I was losing my second.”
I tried to imagine how we would heal
Meghan Markle talks about her hospitalization a few hours later. “Looking at the cold, white walls, my eyes became glassy. I tried to imagine how we would heal,” she recalls. A moment of introspection that reminds her of her trip to Africa in September 2019. At the time, on the edge of her skin after giving birth and being harassed by the British tabloids, the Duchess of Sussex confided for the first time about her feelings within the British royal family.
I’m okay,” a reporter asked me. I answered honestly, not knowing that what I would say would resonate with so many people,” wrote Meghan Markle. “Sitting in a hospital bed, watching my husband’s heart crack as he tried to put my broken pieces back together, I realized that the only way to start healing was to first ask myself, ‘Are you okay?
Tackling Donald Trump
“Are we? This year, many of us have reached our breaking points. Loss and pain have plagued all of us in 2020,” continues Archie’s mom. And to evoke all the great moments of this year: the health crisis, but also the political movement “Black Lives Matter”, in which she took part with her husband.
Violating her obligation of political neutrality, Meghan Markle does not hesitate to attack Donald Trump in a barely veiled tackle, she who has never hesitated to fight him. “On top of that, it seems we no longer agree on what is true. We are not only fighting for our opinions on the facts. We are polarized on whether the fact is, in fact, a fact. (…) We don’t know whether an election has been won or lost.”
An almost insurmountable grief
At the end of her talk, Meghan Markle pays tribute to all those who have also faced the loss of a child. “Losing a child means enduring an almost insurmountable grief, a grief experienced by many, but spoken of by few. In the grief of our loss, my husband and I discovered that in a room of 100 women, 10 to 20 of them had suffered a miscarriage,” she writes, denouncing a “taboo” around miscarriage.
“Some courageously shared their stories, they opened a door, knowing that when one person tells the truth, it gives us all the right to do the same,” the Duchess of Sussex adds. “By being invited to share our pain, together we take the first steps toward healing.” In this time of health crisis, marked by unprecedented social distancing, the Duchess of Sussex calls for empathy. “For the first time in a long time, as human beings, we really see each other,” she says. Before concluding with a message of hope: “Are we okay? We will be fine.”
Photo credits: Agency / Bestimage