Another December loss

As December approached, I wanted to just stay in bed. I didn't want to do Momma's death anniversary. I didn't want to walk through the motions of doing Christmas while still very deeply mourning. Every fiber of my being screamed that the best place for me to be was deep, deep under my down comforter.

Then, just as the week I had dreaded approached, we received the best gift possible: we found out we were expecting again. The idea of a new baby - a new life to hold and cradle and celebrate - seemed to put the world back into balance. We already had such sweet joy in B and our nieces and nephew... this would just be joy multiplied. And how fitting was the timing? It almost seemed as if it was a gift straight from my mom.

And, as most expectant parents do, we began to plan. The serious: More life insurance? Bigger house? The fun: Matching Halloween costumes? Joint birthday parties?

These monumental days began to take shape in our minds. January 7th... first ultrasound! February 14th... gender ultrasound! May 19th... third trimester starts! August 18th... he or she is here!

We thought of how this new baby would line up with our other friend's babies. Whose class they would be in for school. Who would they be closest to. We dreamed about B as a big sister and slightly panicked about how Boones would react to another intruder in her house.

Though I mourned the idea of having a sweet new baby without my momma here, I was still elated. It felt like for the first time in over a year there was more sweetness than sadness in a day. I woke up smiling instead of wincing. Looking forward became a whole new pleasant exercise for me. Mother's Day this year wouldn't be the open wound it was last year, but rather the almost-there-point of becoming a mother again. Instead of next Christmas being two years motherless, it would be our first Christmas as parents of two.

Christmas seemed magical and hopeful and all that is good again.

And then, in the calm darkness of Sunday morning, as the rest of Atlanta was still dreaming, it all ended. In a few hours of pain and worry, knowing nurses' eyes and empty ultrasound pictures, in a kindly doctor's hushed, empathetic tones, it was over.

We were two days shy of being six weeks. The baby was a size of a lentil. So small, but already so wonderfully and fearfully made.

So small, but already so loved. So cherished. So prayed for and wanted. There were already so many dreams and hopes for this child.

But once again at Christmas, we find ourselves facing loss and grief and a sudden, abrupt change in how we thought our lives were going.

Last Sunday was the Fourth Sunday in Advent. In churches across the world, the fourth candle - the Love Candle - was lit. It seems an appropriate candle for how we felt that day. We love that child, that tiny soul, with all that we are as parents and human beings. We love our friends and family, who have shielded us with their concern and kindness. We love those of our friends that have opened up to us with full hearts their own stories of expectant love and sudden loss. We love our sweet B, who continues to smile and laugh though the adults around her are crumbling.

And we love our God, our strong, faithful, ever present God. I don't pretend to understand why after a year of so much grief and pain, we would have a few weeks of pure sunshine only to be cast back into the shadows. I do have faith, though, that in some way God will use this for good. That all will be right in His perfect timing. And that through it all, there was love.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17)