There are a few things in life that, once we lose them, we can never get them back. Okay, maybe there are a lot of things. Such as the moment that just passed. And this moment too. But some things, some things...they don't let go their hold on you, even long after you have lost your hold on them. You find yourself caught, unable to move on, unable to forget what once was, unable to ignore what might have been.
Nursing Eoin is one of those things for me. Growing Eoin inside me was the truest, realest, most unequivocal experience of my life. I did it. I am his mother. I gave birth to him (with some surgical assistance, perhaps, but even so). I am his mother. Mothers nurse their babies. They nourish the life they created with their bodies, thereby continuing the process of creation that began in their bellies. But I can't nurse Eoin. But I am his mother. I am his mother. But I can't nurse him.
I did nurse him for a time! I really did. Everything was going wrong though. I met obstacle after obstacle, but I kept at it. The desire to nurse your baby is up there with the desire to live...if you can take another breath, you can keep going. At some undefinable point, however, something changed inside me. An insidious voice said, it's useless. It'll never work. It's the end of the rope now. And I stopped trying. Up until that point, I had been steadily working towards being able to breastfeed. I'd lost ground at times, but I'd always dug in, found traction, and grappled my way towards a happy nursing relationship with my baby. Then I stopped trying, and with that, I was slip-sliding away from that nursing relationship at break-neck speed. I tried again many times after that, but I never again got a toe-hold. It was over. It ended. I lost my chance, and I will never get it back.
There you have it. Loss' ugly twin is named Regret.
But I am Eoin's mother. Loss and Regret have a younger sibling, and his name is Moving On.