A Month Later
On New Year's Eve, David and I returned our girl's unused car seat to Target. 2018 is gone and my baby is too. So saying that 2019 could've started better is THE understatement of all understatements.
To catch you up- After David and I spent years struggling with infertility, and even before our foray into medically assisted IUIs proved unsuccessful, we felt strongly drawn towards international adoption. We chose to stop actively pursing pregnancy, for our mental and emotional well-being, and began the adoption process in Ethiopia. 5 years into our waiting period, Ethiopia suspended international adoptions -forcing us to abandon yet another dream. Following months of intense prayer, painful discussions, and tedious paperwork filing, we transferred our adoption to India and started to get excited about meeting our princess from that beautiful country. After 6 long months of waiting to be matched (and an unexpected surgery for me), we found out that -SURPRISE- we were pregnant?!? The shocking news necessitated a pause in our adoption process (due to India law and agency requirements), until this miracle babe was 9 months old. I was extremely conflicted about putting our adoption on hold (and eventually having to restart the timely and expensive submission of dossier forms all over again); it felt like one child was trumping another. To my Mama heart, it reeked of abandonment. Because this pregnancy -while incredible- didn't slightly register as part of OUR plans anymore, but it seemed God had decided otherwise. Though once we saw Margot, our sweet girl in sonogram, we were fully onboard. We dreamed about her and her Indian sister sharing a room in the future. We fell in love with the idea of these siblings, our precious daughters, growing up together. Although I remained nervous about the pregnancy, since past attempts to increase our family had failed, we were reassured constantly -by friends, family, medical professionals- that everything was going to be okay. Then on December 8th, at nearly 34 weeks, our lovely and loved Margot Rosemary went to heaven. And the earth stopped spinning. Or, for us it did.
I have grieved in my life. Truly. I have attended funerals for family and friends gone too soon, I have given up on significant dreams, I have felt my heart ripped out over past traumas and relationship strife and senseless disease -both in my journey and in that of my closest friends. But nothing compares to this. As David said, upon waking up the morning after Margot was born, "This is a BC/AD event. Now we'll forever classify memories and existence in two ways- either 'Before' or 'After' our girl died." During Margot's viewing, my bestie Meg snuck into the line to give me a respite hug between visitors. I clung to her, this fellow infant-loss Mama, crying out between sobs, "I wish I had known how horrible this is. I would've been a better friend to you when you lost Gabe. I am so sorry; I would've been a better friend." When folks respond to tragedy by saying, "I can't imagine," it's true. You can't possibly imagine what you haven't experienced. Even in the world of grief, people's processing varies widely. Because losing a grandparent is different than losing a child or a spouse, forced termination of an adoption is different than having a miscarriage or trudging through infertility treatments, fighting a terrible disease is different than your child receiving a mental health diagnosis or being a caregiver in an end of life situation. But yet, grief is present in each situation. Although our family is fairly new in the infant loss world (I hate that sentence So.Damn.Much.), I've already learned a thing or two from this altered reality. And for those of you who "can't imagine," perhaps reading these following 8 statements about grief might help to increase your understanding and sympathy in the future.
1. Grief is- Both loneliness AND a community.
Grief is incredibly isolating. It seems uniquely yours: A burden no one else could understand, let alone carry. And, in a way, that is true. Every person's story IS their own, singular to them. No series of life events will ever be duplicated to tell a narrative like yours. But there are friends waiting in the wings who have experienced similar suffering. My Meggie, when talking about infant loss, says, "It's the club NO ONE wants to join." But it is full of mighty members. When we announced Margot's passing, people came out of the woodwork offering support gleaned from enduring their own child's death. After several acquaintances extended solace in this way, I snarked to David, "I don't want to be friends with any of these people!" That exclamation had nothing to do with the quality or personality of the dear ones reaching out (and A LOT to do with me being a jerk), but it had everything to do with the circumstances of our connecting on a deeper level. And those circumstances are shit. (PS I get to do real blog cussing now. If you can't handle it, Byeeeee.)
2. Grief is- Equally craving AND hating normalcy.
David and I wish we could grieve like Elijah does. He handles things in stops and starts, tearful one moment and then fine for days on end. We, however, wake with an ache and heaviness in our chest. This loss manifests its pain as a actual broken heart, one that somehow continues working enough to keep us alive. What a sick joke. But I see Elijah being his normal self most of the time and I thrive on that, our silly interactions and daily routines. Then I get frustrated 20 seconds later and think, "Why on earth isn't he crying all the freaking time? His sister is gone!" And don't even get me started on the awkward hell of public interactions. Grief both spotlights you and makes you a social leper. So you've become contagious (Avoid at all costs!) or a weird, sad side-show attraction. Which turns any conversation into A.Whole.Thing. where the dead baby elephant in the room is either ignored completely, tip-toed around, acknowledged with love, analyzed from every angle, compared to other elephants, or regarded with stilted sympathy. These uncomfortable tete-a-tete tangos bring out the blunder in everyone, especially 2 already bad dancers. (Read: David and I.) Nothing is easy anymore. It creates an emotional tug-of-war between desiring the monotony that once was and despising that ordinary patterns can continue following a tragedy of this nature. Obviously after everything, David and I took off work for awhile and basked in each other's company. On a busy errand-filled day, that included visiting and beautifying Margot's site, life-y stuff seemed -if not pleasant- at least tolerably regular. By the time we got home though, I was so disgusted with myself that I lay on the couch weeping. Guilt poured over me, my thoughts berating and hateful: "How dare you pretend things are the same as before? Your little girl died, you never get 'normal' again."
3. Grief is- Wishing time could stand still AND fast forward to the future.
"Time will help." "Grief changes." "It won't always be this bad." These statements are probably all true. As we're only a month from Margot Rose's birthday, it's hard to imagine being anywhere but smack in the middle of this open, throbbing wound. David and I long for when passing moments won't seem crushing and eternal. But also, every step forward, each day that passes, the repeated flip of calendar months means we're farther away from the day we met and held our baby girl. She is frozen in time, forever a perfect infant, while the rest of the population grows and changes. The progressing seasons serve as reminders of what we've lost- A memorial stocking, never to be filled or ripped open by tiny hands. An upcoming January due date most likely spent at a cemetery. An already booked vacation home fully equipped with a nursery, now to be left vacant. So as desperate as we are for our grief to transition and mature and be less raw, we would give anything, ANYTHING to go back to December 8th, 2018. To have our darling daughter wrapped in our arms once again.
4. Grief is- Being simultaneously self-involved AND self-hating.
Granted, this might be more of a Mama musing. After we left the hospital, this extroverted personality wanted nothing but to be in her house with the doors shut. I left texts unread, emails unanswered, let voicemails accumulate. All I wanted was David and Elijah, all I cared about was our family. US. Regardless of their compassion, I pushed outsiders -even friends- away. We recycled A LOT of sympathy cards. Because nothing helped except the family cocoon. But therein lay the problem: Our family included me....and I kinda hated me. The mom feels of guilt and failure, especially when a child dies in utero, are HUGE. The safe house you were supposed to provide for your babe didn't work. Your protection wasn't enough. Listen: As the wife of an incredibly sensitive social worker and the daughter of a director of a mental health facility (who could easily commit me), I can recognize when my brain is lying to me. But these particular lies are engorged on a holiday combo platter of loss served with sides of postpartum recovery and suffocating sadness. (For the record, we'd never order this disgusting meal, but now will be receiving it annually at our doorstep. Fun!) And although staunch and super-sized, this unpalatable plate remains laced with deception. Full of insistent, insidious, haunting untruths. Still for any discouraged, weary mother, however well-supported and informed, the deceit is hard to shake.
5. Grief is- Needing reminders AND navigating triggers.
6. Grief is- Caring about nothing AND everything.
I am an emotional person, hence my love for Young Adult literature. A section in my current read, Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand, really resonated with me. In it a character talks about receiving comfort when her father dies:
To catch you up- After David and I spent years struggling with infertility, and even before our foray into medically assisted IUIs proved unsuccessful, we felt strongly drawn towards international adoption. We chose to stop actively pursing pregnancy, for our mental and emotional well-being, and began the adoption process in Ethiopia. 5 years into our waiting period, Ethiopia suspended international adoptions -forcing us to abandon yet another dream. Following months of intense prayer, painful discussions, and tedious paperwork filing, we transferred our adoption to India and started to get excited about meeting our princess from that beautiful country. After 6 long months of waiting to be matched (and an unexpected surgery for me), we found out that -SURPRISE- we were pregnant?!? The shocking news necessitated a pause in our adoption process (due to India law and agency requirements), until this miracle babe was 9 months old. I was extremely conflicted about putting our adoption on hold (and eventually having to restart the timely and expensive submission of dossier forms all over again); it felt like one child was trumping another. To my Mama heart, it reeked of abandonment. Because this pregnancy -while incredible- didn't slightly register as part of OUR plans anymore, but it seemed God had decided otherwise. Though once we saw Margot, our sweet girl in sonogram, we were fully onboard. We dreamed about her and her Indian sister sharing a room in the future. We fell in love with the idea of these siblings, our precious daughters, growing up together. Although I remained nervous about the pregnancy, since past attempts to increase our family had failed, we were reassured constantly -by friends, family, medical professionals- that everything was going to be okay. Then on December 8th, at nearly 34 weeks, our lovely and loved Margot Rosemary went to heaven. And the earth stopped spinning. Or, for us it did.
I have grieved in my life. Truly. I have attended funerals for family and friends gone too soon, I have given up on significant dreams, I have felt my heart ripped out over past traumas and relationship strife and senseless disease -both in my journey and in that of my closest friends. But nothing compares to this. As David said, upon waking up the morning after Margot was born, "This is a BC/AD event. Now we'll forever classify memories and existence in two ways- either 'Before' or 'After' our girl died." During Margot's viewing, my bestie Meg snuck into the line to give me a respite hug between visitors. I clung to her, this fellow infant-loss Mama, crying out between sobs, "I wish I had known how horrible this is. I would've been a better friend to you when you lost Gabe. I am so sorry; I would've been a better friend." When folks respond to tragedy by saying, "I can't imagine," it's true. You can't possibly imagine what you haven't experienced. Even in the world of grief, people's processing varies widely. Because losing a grandparent is different than losing a child or a spouse, forced termination of an adoption is different than having a miscarriage or trudging through infertility treatments, fighting a terrible disease is different than your child receiving a mental health diagnosis or being a caregiver in an end of life situation. But yet, grief is present in each situation. Although our family is fairly new in the infant loss world (I hate that sentence So.Damn.Much.), I've already learned a thing or two from this altered reality. And for those of you who "can't imagine," perhaps reading these following 8 statements about grief might help to increase your understanding and sympathy in the future.
1. Grief is- Both loneliness AND a community.
Grief is incredibly isolating. It seems uniquely yours: A burden no one else could understand, let alone carry. And, in a way, that is true. Every person's story IS their own, singular to them. No series of life events will ever be duplicated to tell a narrative like yours. But there are friends waiting in the wings who have experienced similar suffering. My Meggie, when talking about infant loss, says, "It's the club NO ONE wants to join." But it is full of mighty members. When we announced Margot's passing, people came out of the woodwork offering support gleaned from enduring their own child's death. After several acquaintances extended solace in this way, I snarked to David, "I don't want to be friends with any of these people!" That exclamation had nothing to do with the quality or personality of the dear ones reaching out (and A LOT to do with me being a jerk), but it had everything to do with the circumstances of our connecting on a deeper level. And those circumstances are shit. (PS I get to do real blog cussing now. If you can't handle it, Byeeeee.)
2. Grief is- Equally craving AND hating normalcy.
David and I wish we could grieve like Elijah does. He handles things in stops and starts, tearful one moment and then fine for days on end. We, however, wake with an ache and heaviness in our chest. This loss manifests its pain as a actual broken heart, one that somehow continues working enough to keep us alive. What a sick joke. But I see Elijah being his normal self most of the time and I thrive on that, our silly interactions and daily routines. Then I get frustrated 20 seconds later and think, "Why on earth isn't he crying all the freaking time? His sister is gone!" And don't even get me started on the awkward hell of public interactions. Grief both spotlights you and makes you a social leper. So you've become contagious (Avoid at all costs!) or a weird, sad side-show attraction. Which turns any conversation into A.Whole.Thing. where the dead baby elephant in the room is either ignored completely, tip-toed around, acknowledged with love, analyzed from every angle, compared to other elephants, or regarded with stilted sympathy. These uncomfortable tete-a-tete tangos bring out the blunder in everyone, especially 2 already bad dancers. (Read: David and I.) Nothing is easy anymore. It creates an emotional tug-of-war between desiring the monotony that once was and despising that ordinary patterns can continue following a tragedy of this nature. Obviously after everything, David and I took off work for awhile and basked in each other's company. On a busy errand-filled day, that included visiting and beautifying Margot's site, life-y stuff seemed -if not pleasant- at least tolerably regular. By the time we got home though, I was so disgusted with myself that I lay on the couch weeping. Guilt poured over me, my thoughts berating and hateful: "How dare you pretend things are the same as before? Your little girl died, you never get 'normal' again."
3. Grief is- Wishing time could stand still AND fast forward to the future.
"Time will help." "Grief changes." "It won't always be this bad." These statements are probably all true. As we're only a month from Margot Rose's birthday, it's hard to imagine being anywhere but smack in the middle of this open, throbbing wound. David and I long for when passing moments won't seem crushing and eternal. But also, every step forward, each day that passes, the repeated flip of calendar months means we're farther away from the day we met and held our baby girl. She is frozen in time, forever a perfect infant, while the rest of the population grows and changes. The progressing seasons serve as reminders of what we've lost- A memorial stocking, never to be filled or ripped open by tiny hands. An upcoming January due date most likely spent at a cemetery. An already booked vacation home fully equipped with a nursery, now to be left vacant. So as desperate as we are for our grief to transition and mature and be less raw, we would give anything, ANYTHING to go back to December 8th, 2018. To have our darling daughter wrapped in our arms once again.
4. Grief is- Being simultaneously self-involved AND self-hating.
Granted, this might be more of a Mama musing. After we left the hospital, this extroverted personality wanted nothing but to be in her house with the doors shut. I left texts unread, emails unanswered, let voicemails accumulate. All I wanted was David and Elijah, all I cared about was our family. US. Regardless of their compassion, I pushed outsiders -even friends- away. We recycled A LOT of sympathy cards. Because nothing helped except the family cocoon. But therein lay the problem: Our family included me....and I kinda hated me. The mom feels of guilt and failure, especially when a child dies in utero, are HUGE. The safe house you were supposed to provide for your babe didn't work. Your protection wasn't enough. Listen: As the wife of an incredibly sensitive social worker and the daughter of a director of a mental health facility (who could easily commit me), I can recognize when my brain is lying to me. But these particular lies are engorged on a holiday combo platter of loss served with sides of postpartum recovery and suffocating sadness. (For the record, we'd never order this disgusting meal, but now will be receiving it annually at our doorstep. Fun!) And although staunch and super-sized, this unpalatable plate remains laced with deception. Full of insistent, insidious, haunting untruths. Still for any discouraged, weary mother, however well-supported and informed, the deceit is hard to shake.
 |
| Besides our amazing tribe, this book by Angela Miller has helped more than anything else. Link to an "excerpt" HERE from her blog, A Bed for My Heart, which actually features the full text of this healing writing. |
5. Grief is- Needing reminders AND navigating triggers.
We lived in our home 3 years before a family picture hung on the wall, yet Margot was born 4 weeks ago and canvases of her dear face already brighten our living room. Plasters of her hand and footprints, encased in a beautiful shadowbox made by her Granddad, sit in a sunny spot by our door. I tote her baby blanket around with a weird regularity, evoking comparisons to that Peanuts' character- if said character was depressed and self-loathing. Reminders of our daughter surround us, enough so that I'm ashamed for not having more photos of E out. Like I'm playing favorites and the kid actually living in this house is losing. But that's just it- Elijah is here, LIVING in this house: His Legos littering the floor, smelly sneakers on the stairs, granola bar wrappers on the couch, dripping faucet -NEVER completely turned off- in the bathroom. All signs of his presence, evidence of an 11 year old boy. But then out of the blue, something suddenly appears -fierce and merciless as a tiger- and attacks with unbidden memories of Margot. The other evening, David's hiccups on the couch made me reach for my empty belly to check on our girl. Transferring the solid weight of a rotisserie chicken from its plastic packaging to a baking sheet nearly prompted a heaving trip to the closest trashcan. An informational email from a deleted pregnancy app caused parental sobbing in stereo. Depending on the day, certain remembrances are right and necessary, while in other instances the very same tokens or phrases can be cutting and difficult. Grief is a minefield filled with flowers, each step taken either a lovely expression of memory or an explosive flash of pain. And there's no map for the journey.
The painting Aunt Hannah created & then transformed into Margot's Heavenly Heartbeat.
6. Grief is- Caring about nothing AND everything.
I am an emotional person, hence my love for Young Adult literature. A section in my current read, Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand, really resonated with me. In it a character talks about receiving comfort when her father dies:
"After all that, this is what people said more than anything else:
'I'm sorry for your loss, Marion.'
Her loss. As if she'd misplaced her car keys.
When people said that, a part of Marion wanted to slap them,
knock the cards and casseroles out of their hands.
'I'll tell you what I've lost,' she wanted to say,
and then open up her chest so they could see
the hollow pit where her heart used to live."
Outliving your child steals a part of your soul. After the hospital confirmed Margot's heart was no longer beating, they immediately got me to a delivery room to prepare for induction. Dehydration on top of the rolling veins I inherited from my mother made starting an IV no small task. The nurses stuck me over 5 times with zero success, even the seek-and-find needle trick -slowly moving it while inside my arm- failed. They apologized profusely, but I kept saying, "It doesn't matter; I don't feel anything." And I didn't. Numbness was pervasive. Feeling and caring were locked in a box from our simpler past. Being able to muster the energy for hours of small talk, a major requirement for any public librarian, seems insurmountable now. I can see it clearly, "Oh, you didn't like the new James Patterson novel? Well my daughter is dead, so I guess it could be worse." (PS I wouldn't say that (out loud). Leveraging your suffering as a one-upping tool is icky.) However, the void carved within us periodically fills to overflowing, a flash flood in the desert, depositing aspects of nurture and devotion more deeply than ever before. Our love for Elijah and each other has increased exponentially. Margot Rose opened hidden places inside us. And while her absence removed our capability for pretense and daily superficialities, her presence bolstered our ability to treasure what truly matters.
7. Grief is- Despising transcendent speculation AND desiring a consummate "why."
In the book of Job, God allows Satan to unleash a suffering crapstorm to prove Job's faithfulness. Absolute devastation follows. In the aftermath, friends come to silently sit with Job in the depths of his sorrow. But eventually they start talking and things go to pot quickly. Because folks' attempts to fix grief often end in hurtful cliches or supernatural conjecture. For us, it was as if Margot wasn't enough on her own regard. Like a long or short lifetime increases or decreases one's ability to simply be accepted as a full family member. Like it takes a certain number of earthly breaths or heartbeats to establish one as a full person. Burying a child -whose time was over before it really started- defies the cycle of life. We are meant to be born, age, grow old, get sick, die. That.Is.Natural. Yet prolonged grief over an adult's death is deemed more socially acceptable, while infant loss is treated like minor surgery. Something to recover from and move passed. Newsflash-We will NEVER be the same again. To have anyone casually insinuate otherwise is diminishing and disrespectful to our daughter. For example, compare typical affirmations used for newborns to the dehumanizing language of loss. Healthy babies get regaled with "What a sweet addition to the family!" Conversely, Margot's existence was legitimized by turning it into a vehicle for OTHER'S spiritual betterment. As in, "to strengthen our testimony" or "to touch many lives." It made us murderous. My Tricia said it best, "Margot is not a pawn in some cosmic game of chess...Margot was, is, and always will be her own person, a unique soul who is *enough* on her own merit, who stands alone and is worthy of being celebrated." Here's the thing though: David and I remain committed to the idea that life, that the entirety of creation, has purpose and meaning. And the belief that ultimately there IS a point, a fundamental reason, cracks open the door for "whys" to whisper (or scream):
8. Grief is- Questioning core beliefs AND requiring a foundational hope.
Obvs, the relationship status with God is "complicated" at the moment. Hell, it's verging on a Jerry Springer level of dysfunction (at least from this end). I still hold to the teachings of Jesus as a good blueprint to guide my life. Right now, that's it. Faith has me stuck between a rock and a hard place. Because believing in God means making peace with the aforementioned "why" statements. Too hard. But NOT believing in God means heaven's just a nice story and I won't see Margot again. Also unacceptable. A conversation in Anne Lamott's book Operating Instructions expresses my feelings almost exactly. Anne identifies as a "bad" Christian, which is why I connect with her so closely. This memoir chronicles her son Sam's first year of life and the cancer diagnosis of her best friend Pammy:
7. Grief is- Despising transcendent speculation AND desiring a consummate "why."
In the book of Job, God allows Satan to unleash a suffering crapstorm to prove Job's faithfulness. Absolute devastation follows. In the aftermath, friends come to silently sit with Job in the depths of his sorrow. But eventually they start talking and things go to pot quickly. Because folks' attempts to fix grief often end in hurtful cliches or supernatural conjecture. For us, it was as if Margot wasn't enough on her own regard. Like a long or short lifetime increases or decreases one's ability to simply be accepted as a full family member. Like it takes a certain number of earthly breaths or heartbeats to establish one as a full person. Burying a child -whose time was over before it really started- defies the cycle of life. We are meant to be born, age, grow old, get sick, die. That.Is.Natural. Yet prolonged grief over an adult's death is deemed more socially acceptable, while infant loss is treated like minor surgery. Something to recover from and move passed. Newsflash-We will NEVER be the same again. To have anyone casually insinuate otherwise is diminishing and disrespectful to our daughter. For example, compare typical affirmations used for newborns to the dehumanizing language of loss. Healthy babies get regaled with "What a sweet addition to the family!" Conversely, Margot's existence was legitimized by turning it into a vehicle for OTHER'S spiritual betterment. As in, "to strengthen our testimony" or "to touch many lives." It made us murderous. My Tricia said it best, "Margot is not a pawn in some cosmic game of chess...Margot was, is, and always will be her own person, a unique soul who is *enough* on her own merit, who stands alone and is worthy of being celebrated." Here's the thing though: David and I remain committed to the idea that life, that the entirety of creation, has purpose and meaning. And the belief that ultimately there IS a point, a fundamental reason, cracks open the door for "whys" to whisper (or scream):
God, why interrupt our matching process in India?
Why grant a miracle pregnancy when we were completely invested and happy pursuing our adoption?
Why give a gift that You knew would be taken?
God, why ignore our army of prayer warriors?
Why did we petition nightly for Margot's health and safety?
Why give us wonderful medical resources but not enough time?
God, aren't you the cause of miracles and mourning?
Don't you have the power to prevent or allow both?
How is an omnipotent being not to blame for orchestrating a set of circumstances where the (seemingly intended) outcome is increased heartache?
God, why am I alive and not Margot?
God, how are You not the cruelest jokester?
God, why?
8. Grief is- Questioning core beliefs AND requiring a foundational hope.
Obvs, the relationship status with God is "complicated" at the moment. Hell, it's verging on a Jerry Springer level of dysfunction (at least from this end). I still hold to the teachings of Jesus as a good blueprint to guide my life. Right now, that's it. Faith has me stuck between a rock and a hard place. Because believing in God means making peace with the aforementioned "why" statements. Too hard. But NOT believing in God means heaven's just a nice story and I won't see Margot again. Also unacceptable. A conversation in Anne Lamott's book Operating Instructions expresses my feelings almost exactly. Anne identifies as a "bad" Christian, which is why I connect with her so closely. This memoir chronicles her son Sam's first year of life and the cancer diagnosis of her best friend Pammy:
"I wonder if someday Sam will end up believing in God. Let's face is, the whole thing is sort of ridiculous. I was talking to Bill Rankin about Pammy, and somehow we ended up talking about this teenage boy in Bill's parish who died recently of bone cancer. I felt really appalled, because the whole family had been fighting so hard and keeping so faithful, and then the kid just died anyways. It just fills me with unspeakable terror, for obvious reasons. And I asked Bill, 'What kind of all-merciful God would let that happen?' and Bill just sort of shook his head. I said, 'Don't you priests have anything to say for yourselves?' and he said that a God who adores us and is truly and totally merciful and present for us, who will one day bring us home to be with Him, is something we hope is true, something our faith tells us is true. And I said, 'Well, that is not very damn much, is it?' and he shook his head. And I said, 'Do you think this teenage boy is with God now, in His arms, and if Pammy dies, she'll be with Him, too? And that He's taking care of her somehow right now?' And he looked at me sort of apologetically, for a really long time, and then he said, 'I don't know.' I said, 'But what do you think?' and he said in this very gentle voice, 'I hope so.'"
There is a story in the Bible about a violently troubled boy, afflicted since he was a small child. His father approached Jesus, frantically seeking healing for his son. His plea is recorded in Mark 9:22b-24, "'Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.' 'What do you mean, ‘If I can’?' Jesus asked. 'Anything is possible if a person believes.' The father instantly cried out, 'I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!'" Then Jesus makes the boy completely healthy and whole, showing Himself worthy of the man's belief. An appropriately brief and poignant flannelboard lesson. But parents, can't you hear yourself in the father's vulnerable cries? His weary voice, broken from failed past attempts to help his child, from the arduous journey to Jesus. His desperation is palpable, love stripped down to the point it almost appears savage. I recognize this unbridled passion. We prayed that way for our daughter, the whole family did. Yet instead of life and healing, we got a one way ticket to the wasteland of loss. It's a very raw deal indeed. Something I'd like to loudly discuss (Jerry Springer style) with Jesus in person. Because -despite the brutally abrupt ending of this chapter in our family story- I want to believe in His promises, or at least I want to WANT TO believe. But our souls are crushed with the weight of sadness, with oppressive levels of doubt and mistrust. And each muddy shovelful on top of our Margot's coffin solidified this skepticism, entombing spirit and heart.
Even cynics like me are familiar with the account of Jesus bringing life to the grave. Apparently, it happened more than once. So perhaps He can break open this unbelief, this dank sepulcher where my soul is hiding. Perhaps He can resurrect my dead faith, inserting vitality, heartbeat, and breath when I'd rather lay forever at rest with my daughter. Perhaps He can overcome. Some say He's done it before.
Even cynics like me are familiar with the account of Jesus bringing life to the grave. Apparently, it happened more than once. So perhaps He can break open this unbelief, this dank sepulcher where my soul is hiding. Perhaps He can resurrect my dead faith, inserting vitality, heartbeat, and breath when I'd rather lay forever at rest with my daughter. Perhaps He can overcome. Some say He's done it before.
 | ||||
In Memory of Margot Rosemary Gross
A poem by Gretchen Kemman
A poem by Gretchen Kemman
Dear One,
We glimpsed your sweet face and you breathed into our hearts.
That moment kindled a flame of love for your beautiful being.
Wherever your spirit may travel,
Whatever it may encounter,
Those flames abide in us and extend to you,
Forever.
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ReplyDeleteDear Laura, thank you for sharing your blog with me! It is beautiful, painful and true. Your words inspire me to continue to be more real and authentic, releasing what I think I "should " say and believe. Somehow this brings a feeling of freedom and even hope that there is a deeper meaning that we cannot see or feel right now. Thank you for sharing your gift of writing that helps people recognize questions, thoughts and feelings that otherwise go unidentified and get lost in the shuffle of trying to survive life. Thank you for sharing your Light with me.
DeleteBlessings and love to you, your family and your beautiful baby Margot who I do believe is dancing in heaven and can't wait to be held by you again.
Precious sharing. Thank you.
ReplyDelete