Today snuck up on me unawares. Last night sitting in church I realized what day today would be and unlike other years I was not prepared for that awareness. It is July 9th and exactly five years ago today I was sitting in the neonatologist’s office looking at a large level two sonogram screen and hearing that my second child had a high probability of not surviving to birth due to the intestines and liver having formed outside of my child’s body. Those few moments changed the trajectory of my life and the life of my family. At fourteen weeks pregnant I found myself making end-of-life decisions for my baby that I had not even met outside of sonogram pictures.
Since then this day has always been hard as has July 12th, the day we gave our child Hope back to God. But for some reason the fact that this is the five year anniversary has hit me particularly hard. I’m not really sure why, but I think it may have something to do with the fact that this would have been a milestone year for Hope, the start of kindergarten and new adventures. So I went out to Hope’s labyrinth to walk it as I often do when grief hits. Out there I found it covered in weeds (it’s been really rainy here) and in sore need of attending to. And I realized in our busy summer life I have managed to neglect this marker of Hope’s place in our family life that was so lovingly built.
GUILT, that was the next emotion. I felt guilty for letting the weeds get so bad. I felt guilty for my thoughts of being so settled into our family of three on earth and not knowing how I would have ever managed work, co-authoring the book Still a Mother, all of my other responsibilities and finding sacred self-care time if I had two children in the home. This bereaved mother stuff is messy. There is no rhyme or reason to the emotions, but I really thought I had it figured out. Then today came and I am back in the midst of it, working through emotions I really thought I had a handle on.
So I did somethingI don’t do very often, I vulnerably put my messy stuff out there on Facebook and asked for prayers. And they came flooding in. I found my community willing to surround and enter into the mess with me again, just because I asked and it was blessed. It gave me strength to walk through my messy, emotional day since I still had to go to work. My shift as a critical care chaplain called. I still needed to make my rounds on the maternity unit. I could not just go hide under a blanket as much as that was what all I really wanted to do.
Then something beautiful happened. I made a patient visit. In the midst of this visit my broken and weary spirit heard the brokenness of someone else and reached out. I found words to speak that could only come out of the place of the Holy Ground of brokenness seeking wholeness. I was able to speak blessing in a way I have not done in a long time. The emotion and tear filled holy silence shared between us was soul restoring. I left that room in awed Holy silence knowing only I will be aware of just how that encounter healed just a bit of my own messiness.
Today is still hard and the tears come unexpectedly and I know July 12 is coming. But I have a plan, I have a mommy/daughter date planned with C and we will explore, laugh, play and reconnect in a way that is healing for us. I think this is a very fitting way to honor Hope too, by setting aside a day to be able to just be Mommy, no strings attached and know it is ok to feel completely blessed and comfortable in being content as mommy to C on earth and Hope in heaven.
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