As another day breaks, it marks the passing of day 365 of another year. A relentless passage of time that refuses to recognise the enormity of the moment. I find myself again transported to replay the moments I have lived countless times before, to the dawn of that day; this day 9 years ago, the sky still black, the sun’s rays just barely beginning to peep over the horizon.
We made our way to the hospital, 38 weeks pregnant (…and 5 days- every day counts!). Retracing the path we had taken barely 12 hours before. Then, we had been quietly hoping that everything was still okay, …and it was… but now, that quiet hope had turned to desperation. They took us into a darkened exam room and tried a CTG and then a bedside ultrasound. I knew before they even said the words, the small black and white screen was so still. No more flickering heartbeat, confirming the stillness I had been so afraid to acknowledge. Because to acknowledge it meant no turning back, no more hope for one more day, for one more chance to save her in time, to do something different to chose the other path.
It’s the finality of death that is so hard to take in. How can life become “not life” in the blink of an eye? I wonder if we struggle with finality because we posses eternal hearts. Separation without end is inconceivable, because end itself makes no sense. We weren’t designed with ending in mind, but with beginning and eternity. It’s not meant to be this way.
Like my own sliding door moment, sitting in that room with eyes watching for my reaction, I could see how we would have continued if not for that still and silent screen; the safe arrival of our anticipated 2nd daughter, sister to 4.5 year old Elianna, adored from the moment we became aware of her presence. Melinda Grace, our little melody, a gift, like the grace notes on a music sheet, there to make life that much sweeter because we got to share it with her. I could see myself introducing her to our family, our church, taking her along for kindergarten drop off and mundane errand and appointments.
With appalling clarity I could see how life could have been and yet was not. Instead we proceeded down another path altogether, the arrival of our much beloved and beautiful daughter to a room silent apart from our tears. Photos with our newborn daughter, turned black and white to reduce the shocking impact of death where there should be life. (Should we smile for the camera? To show how much we love her and how proud of her we are? Or cry, for an unnecessary record of the grief and pain of that day) Her first bath; dressing her, introducing her to our family, our church… but in the hospital chapel, not at home with tired eyes from nighttime feeds and cuddles, but eyes red from crying, skin raw from wiping tears. Then leaving the hospital, carrying a bear, holding one another as our midwives cried over the tiny body they held so lovingly, waving in farewell. An empty car seat, an empty nursery, an empty spot where her life should have lived. It’s not meant to be this way. I feel the truth of these words deep into my soul, And yet this is the way it is.
It’s the finitude of grief that gets me, limitless, it permeates every aspect of life; boundless in its transformative power; all consuming, until no part of us was left unchanged. The finitude of absence, the hopeless finality of death. There’s not a lot like it in this world that turns your life upside down-inside out, and leaves you breathless with helplessness. And it seems there’s nothing to do but to ride it, bareback and untamed, holding on with desperate hope for movement forward, out of the pain. Fighting the truth makes no difference, death is impervious to the screams of denial and beating of fists. Along the way as we grapple with grief we confront the deeper truth that our nicely ordered life was only ever an illusion, that we no more have control over life and death than we do the rising and setting of the sun. And now we grieve that loss of control as well, because the world suddenly seems more wild than it did before; more unpredictable and more dangerous, and we wonder how we will live with this new awareness. It is tempting to return to the patterns with which we attempted to control life in the before, but the infinite absence reminds us we are living in the after. We realise there is no back, only forward, we must find a new hope to sustain us. Hope in a story bigger than our own.
Someone grabs our hand. A community reaching out in love, anchoring us, directing our feet to find a rock of truth on which we can shakily climb to our feet. In the demonstrative acts of generosity and grace we find something bigger than ourselves to put our trust in, someone who pursues our heart with tenderness, someone who sees, knows and understands; who saves, heals, protects and provides. And we come to understand that surrender of control may in fact mean sweet release, and not defeat.
And with this surrender, a new sense of freedom bringing with it an ability to appreciate immense beauty in the fleeting things, a meal shared with loved ones, a rainbow, a sunset sky painted in all of the hues of an artist’s pallet, a shared laugh watching Netflix, a warm afternoon, the giggles of our children. And the willingness to look for meaning in a moment, to search out the awe and wonder that makes life so much more rich and abundant. Is there a gift in the change that grief so unrelentingly wreaks in us? I think so, I hope so. A new person emerges, fragile and raw, sensitive and responsive, her strength (I suspect) will lay in her willingness to lean into the one who loves her.
