Remembering a baby

A friend of mine, who also went through a stillbirth, told me a story a few months ago. She was attending a Christian prayer service, and different people were coming forward to tell of the pain in their lives. Apparently an elderly lady, maybe in her late 70s or 80s came forward and wept bitterly over the loss of a stillborn child she had had some 30-40 years prior. My friend said, “I sure don’t want to be that way when I’m her age.”

The comment and the situation trouble me. I don’t want to be lost in grief for the next 30-40 years either, and frankly I don’t think that I will be. Yet, this type of grief than any other. It isn’t like the loss of a parent, grandparent, or even a sibling or peer. Those losses, as tragic, and devastatingly sad as they can be somehow fall into a right order over time I think. Parents and grandparents should preceed their children in death. The loss of a younger person is certainly tragic and hard, but hopefully there are good times, and moments that help to keep their memory alive in the people that loved them. What makes the loss of a very young infant, stillbirth, or miscarried baby so different is that their very existence is imprinted and affected mainly the life of the mother, so in a sense the loss and that unique grief is just the mother’s alone to bear.

I’ve spoken to my husband on this – it’s true. Although he missed our son, felt bad for him to be lost and all it’s not something he thinks about daily, perhaps not even weekly unless I bring it up. Same with the kids. It’s not bad necessarily it just is.

But as a mother, particularly a Catholic mother, who is supposed to cherish each life from the moment of conception, it seems it is my responsibility to somehow in someway give meaning to that little life that lasted so briefly.

I think that is why I insisted on a funeral mass, and Christian burial, headstone the works. I understand not all babies lost in the 2nd trimester get that, and I’m lucky that our loss happened at home so that I had more control over what happened with our baby’s remains. But it’s more than just the physical presence, what about remembering the life? The spirit of the child?

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