My name is Sophie Alagna. You may know me as Sophie Daniels, my professional name, or as Cosmo's Mum, Rocco's Mum or Alessandro's Wife. But it is very unlikely that you know me as Liberty's Mother … and yet that is not only who I am, I often think it is the most important part of my identity.
Liberty was my first child. My daughter, who died in January 2011, the day before she was born.
I Can Love You From Here. Animation by Nadine Furer.
The songs
"There is a full Liberty's Mother EP with four tracks. The three additional tracks are songs I have written which in some way relate to my experiences as a mother who has lost her child." Sophie, 2019
Liberty's story
My name is Sophie Daniels and I am Liberty's Mother. Liberty was my daughter who died in January 2011. She was a healthy baby but her placenta died early and so did she, the day before she was born, when I was 36 weeks pregnant.
I wrote a song for her soon after she died to express and make use of the only thing I had left of her, a limitless amount of love. The song is called I Can Love You From Here.
I am a songwriter and, although I usually write for and with other artists, I have occasionally been a singer-songwriter, so to write this song and share it was a natural and very therapeutic thing for me to do. I often played it to friends, colleagues and students, but in October 2018 I was asked to play it at a ceremony at the Houses of Parliament to mark Baby Loss Awareness Week. The response I had made me realise that I should record and release the song and share it with other parents, or indeed anyone who wants to hear it.
There is very little art — poetry or song or suchlike — about how it feels to lose your child, and particularly your baby. I feel it is important for us to talk openly about what affects us as humans. Not doing so stunts the recovery, or I'd rather say acceptance, process we call grief.
I believe it is important, as the parent of a child who has died, to be able to say and use their name. That is why the project is called Liberty's Mother. It is, in fact, who I am, but something I rarely get to express.
