We made a speedy trip to see my family over New Year’s, and this morning the whole gang of us had brunch. I asked my sister-in-law about a good friend of hers whose baby died earlier in 2009.
It was a brief conversation but it brought tears to my eyes a couple of times. The thing that killed me was when she told me they’d hung a stocking for the baby. Aaggh, it still brings tears to my eyes. Can you imagine? Empty arms, quiet house, and a stocking for the baby who never heard her mother call her name.
I’ve only met my SIL’s friend a couple of times, and it surprised me that I was teary-eyed during our conversation. I was thinking about it afterward, wondering why. Here’s what I think: I think that one of the gifts of motherhood is the recognition of the treasure we’ve been given. Do you know what I mean? The treasure itself is one gift; seeing its real value is still another.
Sometimes I worry that the big picture doesn’t come through for my kids. I’m afraid I get so busy saying “blow your nose hang your clothes wipe your feet brush your teeth quiet quiet quiet will you LISTEN already?” –- so busy that they think the hygiene or the manners or the chores are my top priority when really, my top priority is to teach them about love. I want to love them the best I can, and to teach them to think, in every situation, “What is the loving thing to do here?” I want them to know down in their bones that the greatest of these is love -– love and not snot management. (Although I have to ask -– does anyone else find that it takes boys a long time to figure out how to deal with snot?)
It’s a cliché that you don’t know how much you’ll love your children until you become a mother but you know, things get to be clichés because they’re true. I think I am sad for this woman because I know what she’s missing. I know that the fringe of 4-year-old eyelashes, closed in sleep, is about the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen. I know the delight of laughing out loud at a perfectly timed joke from my 13yo, and the pleasant puzzlement I feel when one of my middle boys stumps me with a question I can’t even begin to answer. I know the visceral pleasure of smelling my baby’s sweet milky breath.
That might be the most intimate smell I know: the smell of my blood, fashioned into my milk, offered to my baby, assimilated into her body, breathed back into me. It is like my baby speaking to me, saying, “I was once a part of you, and now you are a part of me.” The closeness of pregnancy is not the closeness of infancy which is not the closeness of adolescence. But on this solemnity of the Mother of God, I am asking her to pray for my children and me, that we might stay close all along the way. I am wondering what it must have been like to breathe in God’s very breath, and asking her to pray, too, that we might love her Son as dearly as she did.
I am also praying for my SIL’s friend, who has a new baby on the way but who is not finished grieving the one she lost less than a year ago. Will you say a prayer for her too?
We crossed the Ohio River this afternoon and Joe said, “That big bridge makes me nervous. What if it breaks while we’re driving across it and we fall into the water?” I said, “Oh, honey, there’s no need to be nervous. It’s a strong bridge. Besides, God is sovereign over everything, and there are much worse fates than going to heaven together with your whole family.” He said, “You’re right! I hope it does crash! I want to go to heaven with my whole family.”
I can certainly think of ways I'd rather go. Even so, the sentiment makes me want to say, Me too, sweetie. Me too.
What a perfect sentiment -- thank you for your post.
As for the bridge, more than once I've wondered about bridges breaking as I've crossed them (especially biking -- how do I get kids out of a trailer while falling/under water?). I always told myself that I was being ridiculous, they're so strong, etc. Then the bridge a mile away from "my bridge", along the same Minneapolis stretch of the Mississippi, did fall down and I have never been so freaked out by a natural/not-so-natural disaster in my life. That one was too close to home. Going to heaven together freaks me out less than climbing out mangled and possibly losing both or one of them.
Posted by: Amy F | January 02, 2010 at 12:14 AM
I can imagine, because it happened to me in 2005. My first baby was stillborn, at term.
That Christmas I wasn't pregnant again, yet, and we didn't hang a stocking for the baby because we didn't do anything for Christmas.
The next year we had a healthy baby boy, and I mourned my first-born all over again, because I knew what I had missed.
I also try to make sure that amid all the snot and "stop touching" and "be quiet" and "go to sleep" that I also teach gentleness. Be gentle to the dog, be gentle to your baby brother. Protect the small, the weak.
I will pray for your sister-in-law's friend, as she navigates these wonderful, hopeful, terrifying months.
Posted by: JeCaThRe | January 02, 2010 at 08:11 AM
JeCaThRe, so sorry to hear about your loss. Thanks for praying.
Amy F., I have a thing about bridges collapsing myself. In the second btw when Joe said he was worried and when I responded, your bridge is exactly what I thought of.
Posted by: Jamie | January 02, 2010 at 08:54 AM
I can't imagine. It hurts to even think about it.
Beautiful post, Jamie. Somedays I am just going through the steps again and again, and I have to stop and remember what I'm doing, what the point of it all is again. Love. Faith. And more.
Posted by: Tracy | January 02, 2010 at 12:28 PM
Beautiful, really beautiful and moving post.
Posted by: Lilian | January 02, 2010 at 08:06 PM
Thank you for the conversation and the tears and the post and the prayers. It all means a lot to me. - The SIL
Posted by: Ellen | January 03, 2010 at 09:42 PM
This post was SO lovely. I read it several times and teared up every time. All the best to your SIL.
I particularly loved your description of the intimacy of the smell of milky breath: that will stay with me for a long, long time.
I love your blog!
Posted by: Tall Kate | January 04, 2010 at 08:20 AM
Thank you all for the kind words.
Posted by: Jamie | January 05, 2010 at 01:05 PM
"I am wondering what it must have been like to breathe in God’s very breath, and asking her to pray, too, that we might love her Son as dearly as she did."
oh jamie, you always give me so much to reflect upon. thank you for this, and of course, prayers for that mama, for you and yours, to the mama of us all.
(i've had a different kind of appreciation for mary since becoming a mama myself, a wife, you know? i sort of hope that we're wrong and the others are right about her not having more babies- i imagine we are wrong, so i reconcile my belief in our doctrine in the metaphorical sense. i have such a deep and profound sense of connection with her as a young girl/woman mother who struggled and trusted and believed and loved and lost- honestly, i love her for whom i know she really was. she felt what we feel, and to feel that for jesus, all of it, amazing.)
a happy and blessed 2010 to you, mama.
Posted by: pnuts mama | January 06, 2010 at 12:46 AM
Jamie, Ellen sent me a link to your blog, and I just wanted to thank you. (I am the SIL's friend who lost the baby.) You are a beautiful writer. Thank you for appreciating what you have and recognizing that not everyone gets it. If you could, please pray for my husband too... he is suffering just as much as I am. Thank you again.
Posted by: Ariel | February 18, 2010 at 01:01 PM
Ariel, of course.
Posted by: Jamie | March 03, 2010 at 06:01 PM