My heart has been put through the cheese grater. My head pounds & my tummy tumbles. I have a hard time typing because my fingers are jello. Tears threaten to explode from my face at any moment. I feel drained, angry, tired & broken.
These things I feel are all from a little soul that I never knew. At first I felt guilty....almost feel....like I'm barging in on a grief that can't be shared.
When someone dies we are told life goes on. We will see that person in the hereafter. Our souls do not parish at death. But what happens when that person never got to have their first breath? We never get to see their personality. How tall they grow. Never get to see them progress through life. What happens when there can be no comfort because we never got to know who that soul becomes? How does one process that?
Tragedy come faster & faster these days. I blame it on age. The older we get the more things we see. The more people we come to know, the more heartache we share.
A sadness I can not even begin to fathom blanketed a friend today. Her child was born full term, quiet & still. A child that I like to say, took years in the making.
There really are no words. Nothing I say or do will lighten her sorrow. All her friends stand in stunned silence. All we can do is stand behind this invisible line & watch her walk through what will be the most hellish years of her life. Each one of us wish we could take a tiny piece of her sorrow & tuck it safely away in our own hearts. Maybe then, the pain will lessen.
We know, her pain will be all hers. We can grieve, moan, rage, pray & wish. But in the end, she is alone in that piercing, soul drenching pain.
She will sit alone with her wounds...in a silent car...a new car seat will be empty. She will pass a car with laughing teens in it. And her only thought will be
"How can YOUR life go on....when my world has stopped spinning?"
Any women who has children....can picture this vividly in her mind. We are all linked. Whether we push out our babies or they are pulled out or cut out...or even picked up for the first time at an adoption agency...we all can weirdly feel a tiny bit of her agony. This particle we feel...is so deep and black. We feel just a particle...she feels it completely. Lord heal her.
Lord heal her.
The Lord Jesus Christ will be the only one...who can heal her.
We can help. Food will be made & delivered. Her house will be cleaned. Her children will be played with. We will pray with her & hold her hands. We will say to her..."tell me about your son. Was he bald? How much did he weight? What is his name?"
But at night, when all is quite. When her belly aches & her head stuffed with "should haves". The only thing I hope is whispered into her brain are the words.
"Be still and know that I am God."
I hope, in the silence, right before she drifts off to sleep...the Lord speaks to her the words..."He is here, safe & happy. He fell asleep right in the crook of my neck. You did good Momma. Please know I will hold him & rock him & care for him until you come home."
There is joy when the one you loves dies. For they are home...safe & happy after a long day out in the world. It's the ones that get left behind that we grieve for. It's sad, painful, maddening & empty. We don't want to be left behind. We don't want to be left alone...without the ones we love so much. When the black cloud of grief comes, our lungs collapse, are eyes sting & our ears ring.....through the bleakness of it all...... the only words I feel are:
Be still and know I am God.
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6 comments:
Jen you put into words exactly what I was feeling and thinking. Thanks for doing it so well. I ache for her and her family but know that in the end there will be peace. Praying for her.
Thank you, Jen! What a beautiful post. I'll go cry some more now.
Beautifully put. We'll all keep them in our prayers.
Thanks for sharing your feelings. I can't imagine how difficult it is for them. Please let them know that we will try to lift them up in prayer and sincerely hope that somehow the Lord will ease their burden.
I've deleted and restarted my comment four or five times now. My fingers are stilled by tears in my eyes and a sad heart. I read a novel years ago (and have reread it many times) that tries to clarify the profound influence a late-term miscarriage has on a woman's life. It says, I'm paraphrasing, that the woman will always remember that child--how old it would have been, what it might have been doing, what its personality might become. In the novel, the woman didn't hold up as well as our friend, but then she didn't have the testimony that our friend has. I wish she--they--didn't have to go through this. But I hope that we are all there for as long as we need to be with bon bons and tissues and meals and shoulders and God's guidance.
Thanks for sharing.
I am a friend of Syndy's, a blog hopper if you will. You wrote such beautiful words and ones that speak the truth. Sweet is the peace the gospel brings! Thank you for sharing this heartwrenching story. And yes, motherhood is the common thread that binds all women together!
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