The Mom-Thing God Invented

I used my happy-crying emoji entirely too much this week in messages and texts. Packing so much real life into such a small amount of time is something I'll never truly be skilled at. I've always subconsciously known the only way I could be truly grand at life, like other people, is if I got a Fake Day for every real one: Monday, then Fake Monday; Tuesday, Fake Tuesday… and of course the rest of you would never know about my additional 24-hour secret. This is the only way I could be neat-ish (so that's hopeless, and this is why I blog). But for real: my thinking debt could finally get paid off then - cause it grows like a weed over here. There's never enough think-it-through time in my week.

Here's my current back-log: I talked to a NICU nurse who knew someone who had just lost a baby, I talked to a nursing student who is doing her Thesis Paper on Stillbirth (SO NEEDED in health care you guys), and I talked to a mom who hadn't told anyone about her own sweet stillborn son for 33 WHOLE YEARS. Oh my word, I can't even. And then there's the people who've had no stillbirth at all, but can just relate to feeling alone and without God, because they have their own beautifully unique story of grief and trauma that I have no idea how they endure. PEOPLE ARE AMAZING. I am in danger of becoming an obsessive hugger that holds on for awkwardly-horrible lengths of time. (I'm sorry if you've been a victim of this already. Forgive me.)

But I was reminded of something else this week while talking to this mother of the stillborn who never shared her story with anyone. I remembered a time in the beginning of my grieving when I stumbled upon the blog of a beautiful woman named Carly Marie. A baby-loss Mom herself, and amazing artist, she writes the names of sweet babies who died, in the sands of her hometown Austrailian beaches at sunset, and photographs them. Every single one is breathtaking, it's incredible. I would have to guess that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of hearts, have been touched by her gift and lifestyle completely dedicated to her heavenly son. After Oliver's death I immediately got on her waiting list, and within weeks was sent a photo of Oliver's name from halfway around the world. It now hangs four feet tall directly above our piano - the focal point of our most-used room.

Now the vulnerable-blog fact I need to admit here? I was crazy-jealous of her ability to memorialize her son.

One of the most confusing parts about being a stillbirth mom, is that the very instinctual essence of who a mother is, is never fulfilled for us. Our physical body prepares to nurse a life that no longer exists, our nurturing hormones that want to calm tears go unspent, and the need to hold our baby's sweet body agaist our own forever, is fully denied. Once pregnant, this is a train that has left the station: there's no quelling the instinctual and spiritual love mothers possess. It's like that mom throwing herself in front of the car about to hit her children: we don't even understand our own life's value before our kids'. Empty arms after a positive pregnancy test is a conundrum of epic proportions for women.

As a person who wholly believes in the reality of Heaven and the fact that Oliver and I will meet someday, I struggle so strongly in how to express my love for him NOW. So many - like Carly Marie - do it beautifully in ways I know I am genuinely incapable of. The day that Carly Marie's son meets her face to face, he will surely know the magnitude of her love for him. After all, MILLIONS were affected by the breadth of it. But Oliver? How will HE know? For that matter, how will ANY of my kids know? My own testimony is not so obvious and glamourous. I'd like to think Josh (my 11-year-old) knows I love him because I've hung in there, no matter what. That's a Mom, right? Steamy showers at 2am for croup, hours and years of bedtime routines and morning breakfasts, holding back when really you just want to be the COOL PARENT for once… With these situations, at least there's SOMETHING tangible to count, as inadequate as it may be; with Josh, I always have tomorrow. Everyday we spend together - even as his entirely Imperfect Mom - having tomorrow is my hope because I get to BE THERE AGAIN.

But Moms who have lost don't have tomorrow.

When I spoke to the stillbirth Mom who hadn't spoken about her son for 33 YEARS… the idea of how she had memorialized him (or not) never crossed my mind. The only thing I could process was how deep and pure her love for him WAS STILL. I could hear her love directly, without any stats or societal exclamation points. I needed no proof of her heart's condition. It broke me so hard you guys. The amount of people who know and admire your story of parental perseverance (cause every mother's story IS ONE), has no bearing on the depth of heroic love you have for them. God has called some, like Carly Marie, to be "out loud", to meet us in our isolation when we don't know how to reach out to those next to us. It is an example of His compassion and desire to reach us no matter what avenue we find. But that doesn't diminish the love of the "average" Mom in her circle of friends sharing her raw story of pain and love. Public recognition - through Facebook or otherwise - is only the revised American Dream: it's deception that massive 'likes' of your children's photos and experiences are the true test that you as a Mom LOVE YOUR KIDS ENOUGH.

When Oliver died, I felt pressured, shamed, and unworthy to give him the love and honor he was due. I just had no idea how - I was a mess of thumbs. I was no Carly Marie after all. But then, after months of despair, I was able to encounter God's empathy and compassion - and finally see that He knows exactly what it's like to be denied the depth of relationship with a child He longs for, and loves, so deeply. The impossiblity death brings - of no physical touch or audible conversation - doesn't deplete the Mother in anyone. God too longs to hold our physical faces, cupped in His hands, so we can look into His eyes and know the truth: HE LOVES US, THE END. "Will we ever know?", He wonders. This is where a mother gets her passionate pursuit of her children: WE'RE GOING TO LOVE THEM WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT. TRY US. They died?! Whatever, it doesn't make a difference: our passionate hearts remain. They've disappeared? We're still praying. The heart of a mother is warrior-like. The instinctual desire and inability to resist engaging in our children's lives, whether here or there, is GOD'S IDEA. He started it.

But don't stop there. Consider that the earthly determination and talent we may - at times - possess at loving our children is only a shadow of His gloriously perfect pursuit of us... A SHADOW, you guys. And I like to think I love my kids, pretty SUPER HARD. And it's only A SHADOW. A SHADOW

His yearning for us to know the compassionate, nurturing mother-like heart He has for each of us, is so unfulfilled and incomplete. As self-centered as it may sound, I feel like it might be possible that a mother with a child who has died or gone missing may be able to understand God's heart a little more towards us.

I will never, ever, stop loving you. It's just not possible. Ever. EVER.

I'm just waiting for the SOMEDAY that you will know it too.

As our own imperfect hearts silently hope our children know and feel our love, so God hopes we hear his own pleas of His.