Fight Song

This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I'm alright song. . .

'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me

--"Fight Song,” Rachel Platten

I am face-down on the tatami mats, their grassy smell mixed with the salty tinge of human sweat. My body is spent from a good hour’s worth of aikido training.

I am feeling on my cheek the coolness of the laminate flooring of my house, my fists still encased in boxing gloves, muscles shaking from countless jabs and punches.

I am lying on a thin pad at daycare on a remote Indonesian island, the 100-degree heat causing beads of sweat to slide from my temples. My eyes were shut tight as I feigned a nap since those who refused to take one would be beaten. I was wishing, as I wished every day, that my parents would come back for me.

“Get up, Daisy,” said my inner voice. “Get up.” And so I do. I summon the strength to fight gravity, rise to my knees, push up with my palms against the ground. 

“Are you scared?” my friend asked over the phone when I had just recounted to her that my daughter was dead, on a day when I was waiting for the hospital call to be induced. She had suffered a stillbirth around the same time as me, and it was the most candid question I had to answer. Yes, I was scared. Of possibly getting an infection from my baby having died weeks ago inside me. Of not being strong enough to suffer emotional turmoil as I was giving birth. Of needing to be wheeled into emergency surgery if my body did not cooperate. Of not having the courage to look at or touch my little girl. Of having to bare my emotions in front of everyone at her memorial service. 

Yes, I am scared. Of how I’d face life afterward with a death like this hanging over me. Of having to return to work, suffer through traffic, starting again at Ground Zero with a history of infertility and a fetal demise fresh on my reproductive record.

But I am a fighter. It’s what my body knows. It refused to give up on me. During labor, its sole focus was to was to expel what was already lost, and as the pain of contractions seared at my mind like hot coals and my body stiffened up from it, I could feel my spirit grasping at the will to continue. I wanted to live, and I fought for it.

I know grief is not linear, and that with sheer brute force, it could muster up a strength to send me back on my knees. Those days will be hard, days when I will battle time to get everything done and get to where I need to be. Those moments will be frightening, when I could be sitting in a random work meeting and suddenly be assaulted with fresh memories of loss and pain. 

But I am a fighter, and I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me.