There’s an old Hebrew proverb that says before a child is born, the angel Gabriel whispers the secrets of the world in their ears. He tells them everything about God, life, love, the universe. Then he kisses them on the forehead, the child is born, and they begin to forget all the wisdom that was granted to them.

This isn’t a story I remember from Sunday temple as a child. Maybe I missed that lesson or perhaps this one is saved for pregnant women when the questions of life loom as large as their swelling bellies. That’s when I first heard it, and the proverb brought me comfort. My pregnancy was troubled, and we knew it would end just not when or how. In the last weeks of her life, I clung to the idea that my daughter might be held forever in that moment before birth and that even though she would not live, she would know the secret of life.

But doubt is a sticky thing, and my faith has been worn wafer-thin. Was this child granted Gabriel’s gift when it was her parents who chose to end her life? Was Gabriel even there when they took her body from mine? Could she hear his whispers or were the last words she heard the screams of sorry I made in that clinic when I cried for her, for my husband, for our living child, for my body, for myself?

I started to look for hope in other faiths, reading books on death in search of more meaning, or some meaning to come from this loss. Buddhists say, “Long is the cycle of birth and death,” and that belief is held without fear. They are comforted by the idea of reincarnation, that our souls will return back to earth in new forms to help each other until we all achieve enlightenment. Some even believe you can choose what form you take.

I would choose a bird.

I’ve read that birds find each other through the sound of their calls. I like to imagine that when my family returns to the earth, we will listen for each other’s voices in the wind, that maybe the children I’ve lost have already found their grandmother and great-grandmothers too. And that one day, we will all rise from our family tree, hundreds of us swirling as starlings, flying together toward the sun.

-Sasha Howell

Sasha Howell is a writer, mother, wife, marketer, goof, and more. But of all the titles she holds, her favorite is eternal optimist. Her work has appeared in Motherwell and in the books Bar Flies: True Stories From the Early Years, and Gems: Selections from Twenty Years of Mothers Who Write.