Forget-me-not

Forget-me-not flowers: a symbol of remembrance, true and eternal love, and devotion.

A small sachet of seeds given to a mother on the ward to remember her miscarried baby. Although death is often associated with old age or terminal illness, I was reminded of its unpredictable nature during my second hospital shift. Seeing the tiny foetus of a fifteen -week miscarried baby was a stark reminder that death can happen at the earliest stages of life. The bereavement midwife on this ward gently showed me the baby in the tiniest of coffins and explained the delicate process of what happens to babies when they are miscarried or stillborn; giving grieving parents the option of community or individual burials or cremation.

Grief is never a linear process for anyone, the compassion shown by this midwife was inspiring, and the knowledge that parents are fully supported was comforting. A precious memory box is a cherished part of many bereaved parents' journey, holding within: hand and footprint scans, a soft white blanket, a matching teddy bear to the one given to the baby, and a sachet of forget-me-not seeds. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to witness something so precious.

This is a mixed-media art piece of graphite and watercolour. I chose to draw the heart, acting as a vase for the delicate flowers, using pencil to create a monotone centre. The heart is representative of the once-beating heartbeat of the baby as well as the memory held within the heart of the parents. I used watercolour to paint the flowers to contrast with the monotone heart, symbolising the life the baby still holds within the family.

Here you see a blossom with a diseased core, hidden away by layers of petals. Only as time moves forward and the layers are peeled back does this disease become more apparent. However, by then, the damage has spread and much of which cannot be reversed. This imagery tells the story of many women who have suffered heart attacks, whose condition had gone unrecognised for too long, leading to lifelong damage to the heart and disability, impacting their entire way of life.

Like the flower, there are also layers of complexity to this issue, which stem from the historic research based on understanding human health by using the male body as the default. This practice lead to an incomplete understanding of women's health.

Even though now we understand that this one-size fits all approach is flawed, these ideas, based on skewed historic research remain, and still have a negative effect on womens' well-being today.