Is that you?

Today's post is simply some poetry I wrote.  It comes from my bereaved momma's heart as I continue to do this journey as a momma to one on earth and one in heaven. My prayer is that it may provide healing to you if you share this type of journey, provide insight if you accompany someone in this journey or simply bless you in some way.

IS THAT YOU?

What was that?
A shadow catches my eye.
Then it's gone again just as quick.

Was that you?
That child sized shadow,
the one that just blinked through the darkness.

This is not the first time I've seen your shadow.
Do you come because you miss me?
Or are you checking in, making sure Mommy's ok.

I've never believed in ghosts.
And angels have never been physical beings in my personal belief.
So that child sized shadow, it puzzles my soul.

Yet I always feel at peace,
When in the stillness of the night,
It flitters through the corner of my sight.

The only explanation I can come to,
is that it is you, my precious little baby.
The one I only knew in utero.
The one I never got to see.

That shadow is it you?
You coming back so that I can "see" you?
It is the only explanation that this Mommy's heart can give.

Messy Grief. Blessed Grief.

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 9^th 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 12^th, 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.

A Second Child Remembered

On this blog I have reflected quite a bit on being mother to my daughter, C, so much so it may seem like she is my only child.  This is not the case however.  I do have another child, one that I think about quite a bit this time of year. That child’s name is Hope. It was around mid April five years ago that I found out I was pregnant for the second time. Only a short few months later in July I found out my child was not going to live to birth. I had to say good-bye and joined the ranks of bereaved mothers.

The last five years have not always been an easy journey. I have struggled to figure out how I define myself as a mother. I struggled with the question of how many kids do you have. I have looked into the face of grief and difficult decisions. In the midst of all of this I had to keep working as a chaplain. I continued to have to put aside my own grief to minister to the grief of others. I shared the whole of my grief with only a very chosen few who I knew would not judge me and could handle the fullness of my struggle. For a long time it was a lonely place to be, and still is lonely sometimes.

One thing I have noticed over the last several years is that the issue of perinatal loss comes to the forefront about three times a year, October which is perinatal loss awareness month, Mother’s Day and occasionally around Father’s Day. But really this is not an issue that is dealt with three times a year, it is an issue dealt with daily. Daily, bereaved mothers miss their child(ren) desperately, daily women may feel like a failure because their body betrayed them through infertility or inability to carry a healthy fetus to term. Daily there are little things that remind us our little ones are no longer with us in body, only in memory.

For clergy who also hold the title of bereaved parent the journey can be even harder. Infant dedications/baptisms, “required” attendance at baby showers and so many other events that are attended to around the birth and life of children in our congregations can be reminders of little ones of our own that will not experience these things. We do truly celebrate these events for they are joyful reminders of the miracle of life. It is just that sometimes, depending on where we are in our own grief these events can have a bit of taste of the bittersweet.

In my own chaplaincy I have discovered that being a bereaved mother does give me a unique place at the side of the bereaved mother I may be ministering to. At the bedside I am equiped with a host of pastoral education but also the life education of walking this particular journey myself. “Bereaved Chaplain Mother” is a unique title  I hold and with it the comes the call to enter into this place of ministry in a way few others can. It is in this place that I have walked some very hallowed ground.

Walking through the hallowed ground of grieving Hope’s death, seeking meaning in it and ministering through it has taken me some unexpected places. This journey has had me sharing my story with nurses and nursing students to help them in gaining better understanding in caring for women going through perinatal loss. It has also found me writing. I have never really considered myself a writer, yet the need to share Hope’s story has pushed me to write through the encouragement of colleagues and family. Some of my writing will soon be published.

Writing has become another part of this journey of grief that eases with time but does not really fully go away. It is both scary and freeing to know that Hope’s and my story is being shared with the world. And perhaps adding my voice to the other voices speaking about this issue will continue to provide healing not only to myself but also to others who share this unique grief journey.

Dancing With My Grief

October provides the opportunity to focus our attention on many worthy areas of awareness, but the one closest to my heart is that October is the month for awareness of pregnancy and infant loss. It is a cause close to my heart because not only am I a mother, but I am also a bereaved mother. My second child Hope died at 14 weeks gestation, four years ago this past July. And so, as yesterday was the actual day in October for this awareness and remembrance, I find it hard to stay silent.

It is hard enough being a bereaved mother, add into the equation the fact that I am a bereaved chaplain mother and sometimes it gets complicated, particularly since one of my areas of ministry is the maternity unit. I do feel privileged and called to be present to these mothers in their times of celebration when all goes as expected, but also especially when these mothers are simultaneously saying hello and goodbye to their little one(s). But this also means that I am working in the face of my own remembered grief on a regular basis. It is a very careful dance with my grief that I do some days. I am grateful for a staff that understands when I find a corner to wipe away the tears after I leave a room. I am grateful for coworkers who recognize how hard some days are. Sometimes it is the only way I survive. I am still in the process of trying to figure out how to do all this well, but that is not the purpose of this blog post.

Today I am writing to give voice for the mothers and the families who share this grief and loss. You may notice that I mention families. It can be very easy to focus on the mother who has carried the child, but in taking this journey myself I have come to realize it is the whole family who is affected. Fathers grieve a child, children sometimes very young are trying to figure out how to miss and grieve a sibling; grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins – all are affected. I discovered I could not care for my family in the first days; I needed others to minister to my family. I needed others to minister to me. Even now, sometimes this is the case. It goes back to you the simple truth that you cannot be a chaplain to your own family.

There are no easy answers here, just the simple truth that I still grieve and I still minister to grieving families. It is a dance I will always do. And I am grateful to know that I have God and Spirit as my dance partner. And it is in this spirit that I will carry on as a Bereaved Chaplain Mother.