Deep Pain, Deep Love, Deep Beauty

This Wasn’t Meant To Happen by Ali Harris is the most beautiful book about deep love and raw grief. Where these two meet, there is a pain that never leaves and there is a great love that never diminishes. It is a beautiful book that is grounded in fact as the author had a stillborn baby.

Dealing with this subject matter, one might be forgiven for thinking that this is a depressing read – but far from it. This is a work of great beauty and of great love.

The novel is written in the first person from the point of view of Sofie, and as such, we ‘feel’ her pain and her love. After giving birth to her stillborn son, we read “as I gaze at him, I feel a flood of love far greater, lighter and deeper than the abyss I’m in.” Sofie experiences the deep love that any new mum feels for their new baby.

The reader really invests emotionally in this book. As Sofie leaves hospital, a simple phrase expresses her love and loss. “Having him, holding him, loving him and then leaving him.”

We witness the couple trying to navigate their grief. It is a lonely journey as each travels their unique road alone. There is no getting over death, merely navigating through it.