This is What it Means to be Held

Tomorrow is my sweet baby Matthias' second birthday. Although it has been two years since I have seen his face or touched his small body, he is exceedingly real and precious to me.

I read this article yesterday by a woman on the eve of her dead baby's 2nd birthday. She writes what I feel as well. That the death of her baby just before birth seemed an impossible thing to face. "Yet our journey continues two years later, and I am forever grateful for it." I long for my baby. I miss him. His death is still very painful. And at the same time I am grateful for what God did through his death. I know His love in a way I couldn't before, and I would never want to trade that. So here I am, stuck in a paradox.

This paragraph especially echoed my parting with the baby I had carried for nine months:

"I could never fully describe the feeling of watching my child leave me and knowing with great certainty that I would never see her again. I had a pain in my chest, an emptiness and hurt, that engulfed me. When Judy first began to take her away, with our permission, I felt my body begin to shake uncontrollably. I could not bear that this was the beginning of the rest of my life without Charlotte. I cried out—I needed her back—and Judy brought her to me. I buried my face in Charlotte's little chest and sobbed, telling her again and again how much I loved her. Every ounce of my being longed to keep her, to mother her, to love her here on earth. But I could not."

Letting him go was the hardest thing I have ever done. I am able now to be comforted by the words of C.S. Lewis, that Christians never really say goodbye. But I wasn't able to be comforted by that then. I was so completely broken-hearted that I didn't know I was being held.