Advent Peace - Advent Guilt

Advent has arrived and with it our tree is up and the spiritual journey is underway with both family and mother/daughter devotions around the advent wreath. Overall, it is a fairly normal (if there is such a thing) Advent. On further reflection, if I’m honest, I’ve found myself inhabiting a weird place of grief.  No, grief and guilt. It is a truth that for women and families that experience fertility issues and/or pregnancy loss and infant death that Advent and the hopeful waiting towards the birth of Christ can be painful and a struggle to get through. After six years on this journey I find myself finally reflecting deeply and intentionally on my own relationship with Advent as a bereaved mother. And I have come to the conclusion that it is complicated.

The part of me that is deeply connected to contemplative spirituality and spiritual rituals looks forward every year to putting up the Advent wreath and choosing the devotional material for our family worship around it. This year my daughter and I are slowly coloring our way through an Advent poster every morning before school and work. I love these moments, I love planning for them. I love guiding my daughter through Advent to Christmas with a strong spiritual focus on the reason we celebrate Advent. I don’t feel the ache in my heart of what should have been with our second child until we light the candle of Hope. Hope, our child’s name, and am stopped in my journey with emotion. These are the emotions of the heartbreak of grief and the guilt that Advent does not remind me in a deeply emotional way of my Baby Hope. Then I remember that I have chosen to honor my baby Hope by living fully into my life, and for me that also means choosing to find joy and peace in the waiting for Baby Jesus to arrive. But sometimes it gets complicated because when the feelings sneak up, even after six years, I think I should have a handle on it. I have to remind myself there is no timeline with this forever grief, and it is ok to not have a handle on it some days, even six years later.

Guilt crept up again as we put up the tree. CJ has her own collection of ornaments, and earlier in the year she was commenting on how Hope did not even have one ornament of her own. CJ was very intentional about remembering to put up the purple snowflake on the tree that she received at the bereavement walk we did in October (you can read that blog here). It was important to her that her never-born sibling have Hope’s very own ornament on the tree, just like CJ has her own ornaments. Because I knew how important that was to her, I had planned on us putting Hope’s snowflake on the tree together, taking a moment to remember. In the hustle and bustle of decorating, CJ put the ornament on herself  - no ritual or special moment of remembering done together. I felt guilty; something that important should be guided by me. But then again maybe not.  Maybe that needed to be CJ’s thing as Hope’s sister, done in her own way. Then I felt a bit sad and left out. Like I said, sometimes it’s complicated.

And amidst all the Advent and Christmas preparation, parenting and life continue. Adding in piano lessons for CJ making it a total of 3 activities she is in. It was never to be more than two, but she is an extrovert and needs the interaction. As I sit down with my calendar trying to balance the schedule for school, work, her activities, my self-care, church, down-time as a family, my thoughts immediately go to wondering "how would I have ever done this with two kids? ". And a guilty feeling of contentment being mother to my one living daughter comes over me. When these moments hit, the guilt looms large, like I have tossed my dear Baby Hope aside. That is not the case at all. I would have embraced the crazy chaos that comes with more than one child, oh so willingly, if that had been our future. But I have also chosen to honor my second child by embracing the life and family that has been given to me, and that my husband, daughter and I make together. Embracing means living into the fullness of the type of mother I am able to be now, in the life I have now.

When the guilt looms large, I try to think of my baby Hope moving in just a bit closer, reminding me it is ok to experience Joy, Love, Peace, and Hope. It is ok to be happy and content in the place I am. So this Advent season I am choosing to live into the PEACE, HOPE, JOY AND LOVE of the Advent candles. But I also know it will always be just a bit more complicated for me living in this place of remembering, honoring and living life. And that is ok too.