Like Water

Two weeks ago I held a gift. It was perfect. and small. and mine. I coupled our fifth baby in my hands after it had passed through my body. I held my baby. It came- once again- too soon. I held this tiny, lifeless life and knew its beginning and end. There is a simple and tragic beauty of being the mother to a child there and then gone. With me and then with GOD.

Oh heavens, I will never get used to this sight. Each time takes my breath away and swells my heart and puts a lump in my throat.

There is this profound feeling that my dream to be a mom to a living child is slipping through my hands. Like water, I cannot hold on to it. I can’t clench it tight enough. It seems that the harder I try to hold on to it the more it slips out of my grasp.

But I have been given an amazing gift- the gift of time to step away from any obligations and just focus on being in this process of grief and healing.

I spend much of my time in quiet solitude. I walk the streets of this city- sometimes I just walk to walk, but sometimes I walk to soothe. I sit with my counselor and together we explore this mountain of pain. I read. I try to write but so often my words and thoughts feel like soup- formless. I enjoy the company of my husband. I bake and I clean, allowing my tears to come as I stir and sweep.

This time and these things are helping me. Like water flows from a faucet, my tears have flowed freely and abundantly without restrain....let the healing continue.

I know that to most of you the experience of this kind of pain and loss is unknown, yet some of you have reached out to me over these last few weeks and I thank you for your words of comfort and the reminder that you are thinking of me and praying for us.

Thank you for honoring the life of my babies by acknowledging their passing- what you may think is so small and insignificant is quite the opposite. Like water in a barren land, your words are a welcomed gift. “Thank you” seems so inadequate to express my appreciation to you, but it comes wrapped up in all my heart-felt sincerity.

Something For the Mendicants

"The Thorn" by Martha Snell Nicholson

I stood a mendicant* of God before His royal throne
And begged him for one priceless gift, which I could call my own.

I took the gift from out His hand, but as I would depart
I cried, "But Lord this is a thorn and it has pierced my heart.

This is a strange, a hurtful gift, which Thou hast given me."
He said, "My child, I give good gifts and gave My best to thee."

I took it home and though at first the cruel thorn hurt sore,
As long years passed I learned at last to love it more and more.

I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace,
He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His face.

*A "mendicant" is a beggar