Two beautiful babies. Two children created in the image of God. Two lives, precious and unique.
Only one of them survived.
She is now a feisty seven-year-old, strong-willed and sure of her opinions. She lives life in a large way and most certainly has an interesting future ahead of her.
But what of her brother or sister here?
When her mother and father were looking upon this amazing photo of her, they did not think of her death. What they saw was his promise, dreamed of the future he would have with them. Would she like sports? Would he play an instrument? Was this a tom-boy who would be as intrepid a nature lover as her mom? Or would she be deeply sensitive, thoughtful and deliberate as her dad? Would he be besotted with trains as his father? Would he share a love of writing with his mother? They dreamed of a future filled with possibility supported by their love.
And then there was one. Rightly so, the parents were thrilled that a child would soon be taking his or her place in their family. Seven years later, that welcome has not faded. In the best of times and in the darkest moments, a fierce abiding love surrounds that little girl.
But what of her sibling? Her parents did not love her any less. He was not any less welcome. Her life matters. His life matters. Life. Death. Loss.
Embryo. Fetus. Infant. We like to begin to delineate life, order it, package it up, and make it neat and tidy. We spend our lives making sense of the world, finding explanations for everything. Eschewing all notion of mystery.
Toddler. Child. Teen. Adult. Senior.
We label and slot. We organize and categorize. We put everything in its place to that we can understand how things might be, should be, will be. Those terrible twos, we expect. The rebellious teen does not surprise us. Nor does the frail senior. We plod along the path of expectations of how life should be.
But what about the ones who do not fit the order? We find them difficult to face. The child who dies before his parents. The child who grows up without his parents. The child who is ill or disabled or otherwise challenged. The child whom we never got to hold.
Pregnancy is fraught with landmines. All those expectations. All that advice from others. The waiting and wondering. The changes in body and mind. The hope and dreams and fears and uncertainty. We talk of babies. We dream of babies. We plan for babies. Only not all babies live.
Miscarriages are widely believed to happen on average 1 in 4 pregnancies. That is a harrowing, devastating statistic. The women carrying those babies struggle with the death of their children in ways seldom understood. They grieve in ways not always apparent. They face people who tell them not to dwell upon the miscarriage, to move past the miscarriage. The miscarriage. The pregnancy is no longer defined by life, by the baby(ies). Yet the pregnancy is also not really defined by death, by the loss of life. It becomes
the miscarriage. For some, it becomes an event. A happening. A circumstance. Yet, in reality, it is the death of a baby, the death of a child, that parents experience in all its agony.
Here, the parents had both life and death, birth and miscarriage. There was not a successful outcome to the pregnancy. Dreams fulfilled and hopes dashed. Joy and sorrow.
We need to allow parents the right to grieve, however this is to them. We need to respect all life, not merely that which is born. We need to understand that often in the rush of excitement over a child born, we might be missing the child who was not.
Infant loss is a complex, heartwrenching issue. For many, infant loss colors the lives it touches in ways not always obvious to the naked eye. The pain and sorrow mothers and fathers bear over the loss of babies no one know may be hidden from everyone else in their lives. Hidden agony. Hidden confusion. Hidden shame. Hidden guilt. Hidden longing. Hidden sorrow. And such is not merely processed and done, not eventually "over."
But God is the Author of all life and misses not the creation of a single soul. Christ died for all, for the sinners and the sin that has wreaked such havoc on God's good creation that even the creation of life can be laced with pain and suffering. And the Holy Spirit understands the secret groanings of our hearts, carries the words we cannot speak to Jesus, who brings them to our Heavenly Father, who deeply loves us and all lives created...not merely those who were born.
The second child above may be only missed by his family and their close friends here on earth, but in Heaven her life was celebrated, welcomed, and rejoiced by all.
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
