Life After Loss

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As much as I’d like to post something light and fluffy, perhaps a post about Hudson scaring himself with his own burps, or how Brooks and Clark have been writing some of the best narratives, or how Isaac scored 12 points at his last basketball game, or how Henry can’t get enough of Jedi Academy – this has been on my heart for some time and I just can’t shake it.

I haven’t wanted to write this post for several reasons. One being because it could be misunderstood. One because it’s just plain hard. But I think it’s needed. Maybe someone needs to read it, or more likely maybe God needs to work inside my heart as I continue to grow through grief. 

Brad asked me a few months back if having Hudson has healed some of the wounds I felt from our miscarriage. It was a question I had already been working through, because being given life after a loss has brought forth a lot of emotions, feelings, and perspective.

In so many ways the answer is a resounding YES! We’ve been given LIFE after walking through the dark shadows of death. The redemption and grace shown through this sweet baby has been such an outpouring of God’s goodness. It’s bandaged my seeping wound like nothing else. 

And part of me only wants to acknowledge the good. Part of me feels like that is what I’m supposed to do. A gift of life has been given to us that we didn’t think was even a possibility.  No one expects you to grieve after you’ve been given life.  It seems greedy, ungrateful, or selfish.

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The reality is, we have both cried more tears over our loss of our “5” in the last four months than we have in over a year. There is something about holding this life we’ve been given – taking in every wonderful way he’s been created, breathing him in, soaking up these sweet babies days, that gives the loss more weight.  You see the life you’ve been given and see the significance of the life taken. It’s this bittersweet dance of gratefulness and a different kind of sorrow.

You appreciate the way God designs, grows, shapes, and sustains life. We watched this baby grow from a blinking heartbeat to a crying, moving, breathing proof of His creation. Yet, the scar feels deeper and more profound knowing what you are missing.

He gives. He takes away.

There is something about grief that richly acknowledges life. And for that I am grateful. Where there is great love, there is great loss when that love is taken.  One thing that has been disheartening in this journey has been how “pro-life” doesn’t always give enough significance to miscarriage. If we fight for life of babies in the womb, we must also grieve it when it is lost. 

I was processing some of this late one night, as I held life in my arms in the dark of his nursery. There were tears in my eyes as I watched him doze off with a drip of milk on his sweet lips. I was thanking God for his life and giving me the opportunity to be a mother again, for healing my heart, for giving me joy through the journey. I was thinking about a verse that was shared with me shortly after our loss,

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” Luke 6:31b

At the time that verse was hard for me to fathom. Tears to laughter seemed like such a disconnected contrast.

In that very moment, Hudson laughed in his sleep – a full out giggle. 

What a kind way for God to show me the truth of this verse through the bliss of baby laughter!!! 

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There is great gratefulness, joy, contentment, and fullness along with a dull pang missing the life we didn’t get to hold this side of heaven. And the great peace of hope, passing our understanding. The hope that promises of love that will be reunited. So yes, life brings healing, but it can never replaces the pain of a life lost.