Dignity Through Love after Death

There's a certain kind of exquisite beauty in enduring love.

Love that can't see or touch, yet not only remains, but deepens.

Deepens despite the separation of time and even death.

When others judge and see someone "not moving on," I see a mother's lasting, enduring, abiding, persisting, continuing, permanent devotion and eternal LOVE.

She didn't disappear. She isn't erased. She's just there and I'm here. But I love her just the same and anticipate the time I'll see her again.

What kind of mother forgets? What kind of mother has a love that grows cold?

Remember that next time judgement crosses your heart towards a bereaved mother and ask yourself not to speak the message that life isn't valuable anymore after death.

Allow mothers to treasure life even in death, in many ways even more because of death. God speaks so much about dignity through love after death. Absence is felt because value is first recognized. 💕

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Fast Forwarding and Rewinding

When Lily was born, when I held her precious tiny body in my arms... she was so silent... so still... my tears spilling out on cheeks that would never feel her own tears.

It's almost like in that moment of reveling in newborn goodness, baby girl sweetness and purity, I could picture Lily as an old woman.

I held her, this being so fresh from God, and in my mind's eye, the movie reel of her life played out... only, it didn't go forward, but backwards. Instead of holding my baby girl dreaming of what will be, I held my baby girl and dreamed of what never will. I ached over the life that wouldn't be lived out. I ached over the childhood lost, the babies and grand-babies of her own that she'd never hold. I saw all these events and memories of the full type of life that only someone elderly could understand. I saw them going backwards, fast forwarding and rewinding at the same time. Erasing what never will be in the first place.

But still my heart and my mind saw the movie of her life play out. My mother heart naturally somehow knew at least to some extent what could have been, what I dreamed would have been. The life she would have treasured even long after I was in the ground.

It reminds me of a poem by Tricia Richards on stillbirth in which one line she writes, "We cannot remove the shroud of death that holds you still."

The shroud of death held her body still in that moment. It holds her body still in this moment nearly 8 years since her birth. It holds what might have been still, frozen on could-have-would-have-should-haves. 💗

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When You Lose a Baby

When you lose a baby, you don't just lose an idea of a person or a potential possibility of a future.

You lose a very real would-have-been life and future, full of all the many small and large things that comprise a life.

You lose knowing what their hobbies and interests would be, the things that would make them laugh, what college they would have attended, who they would have married, who their children would have been... these things just scratch the surface.

The person who is lost before birth is the same person at the core of their being who would've been in 5, 10, 20, 50+ years. All that was needed was time, development, nurturing, and love.

Of course we as humans are shaped by our experiences too, yet a massive part of who we are is determined and crafted by our Creator before we are even born.

The way we will look as we age is already determined, our personalities, the things we will enjoy and prefer... all of these things are wrapped up in the tiny precious package that is a newborn baby.

When this precious life is lost, it's not just an idea that is lost, but the package that was ready to be opened, that suddenly never will be. The contents that were already there are somehow lost, leaving the family with an empty feeling of being somehow gipped and deprived. This package was in your lap ready to be finally opened after shaking it and longing to discover it for 9 months in eager anticipation, then suddenly death steals it back. That's a little bit of what losing a baby feels like.

It was a gift the Lord gave me when He opened up my heart to love Lily as much as I do. And because of how much I love her, I miss her with that same great measure. The grief, in turn, is also a gift, for even that points to the sanctity of her life and each life, no matter how brief. 💕

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