The Girl, The Glider, and The Grief
Lately, I’ve found myself revisiting certain moments in my grief—moments that feel like they’ve never really left me. One of those is sitting in the glider in Alivia’s nursery, hands on my belly, dreaming of the life we were about to have together. I think about that girl often—the one who had no idea what was coming.
Writing has always helped me process what’s too big to say out loud, and recently I wrote something that felt deeply personal. It came out of a place of stillness, reflection, and love.
I wasn’t sure if I’d share it at first, but I know I’m not alone in these kinds of memories.
So I’m sharing this for anyone who’s lost a version of themselves they once knew,
for anyone who’s sat in a room full of dreams and later had to learn how to breathe in that same space with empty arms.
This piece is for her.
And maybe, it’s for you, too.
If I Could Go Back to That Girl Sitting in the Glider
If I could go back to that girl sitting in the glider…
The one who sat quietly, with her hands wrapped around her growing belly
The one who believed she was just weeks away from holding her daughter in her arms, from all the firsts—
the cries, the lullabies, the late-night feedings that she oddly looked forward to—
I think I’d kneel down in front of her, gently take her hands, and just… breathe with her.
I think she’d crumble under the weight of the truth.
She was still dreaming in full color, still washing baby clothes and picking out headbands.
Still imagining what her daughter's laugh would sound like.
Still writing a future that would never happen.
But I might tell her this:
There’s going to be a moment where everything splits—
before and after.
And it will be brutal.
It will steal your breath, your softness, your certainty.
It will make the air in that nursery feel sharp and cruel.
It will make silence deafening.
But, you will keep going.
Not because you’re strong in that cliché kind of way,
but because you won’t have a choice.
Because love doesn’t stop just because their heartbeat does.
Because your grief will become your language.
Because she will become part of everything.
And even though your arms will ache to hold her,
you will carry her in other ways—
in the way you speak, in the way you mother her siblings,
in the way you show up for others walking through the fire.
I wish I could protect that girl in the glider.
I wish I could freeze her in that one perfect moment before the breaking.
But if I could, I’d also be stealing the depth she gains from the pain.
The perspective. The tenderness. The way she now lives with her heart cracked wide open.
She won’t recognize herself later.
And that’s okay.
She’ll become a mother in the hardest way possible.
But she’ll still be a mother.
Always.
Written By Elizabeth Quinn (April 2025)
Grief doesn't always ask for permission to change us—it simply does. But in that change, there’s a quiet kind of growth.
The girl in the glider may have had dreams that never came true, but she also carried a strength she didn’t know she had.
The woman I’ve become wouldn’t exist without her.
I share this with you because I know grief doesn’t just take—sometimes it gives us pieces of ourselves we didn’t recognize at first. It shifts the way we see love, loss, and even hope.
So if you’re sitting in a place where you wish you could go back, remember that the version of you from before is still with you, too.
She’s part of your story.
And maybe, just maybe, she’s exactly who you needed to be in order to keep going.
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