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It’s been seven years, and this time I’m not surprised, by the anniversary, by the march of time.
Losing him has become a part of me, like my body, like the children I hold.
And now on that very day I lost him, my body swells full with a daughter wiggling and squirming – something I I never thought I would feel again, even after Jeremiah came to us less than a year after Joshua was gone. Never thought I would see this day because we had two more babies fly away, them never growing full inside me like Joshua did, just washing away before the world even took notice.
Babies die and babies are born. The world is horribly broken and it is full of rosebushes and songbirds; amidst tragedy it is overflowing with creation and life. Each time I walked into the doctor’s office this year, I held my breath until her heartbeat rang out clear. Each time I wondered if this would be the time there was only silence. As she grew bigger the panic subsided because she was there reassuring me with every wriggle and hiccup. Reassuring me that she was still with me. But when you have seen trauma, joy doesn’t come easy anymore, you know everything can splinter in an instant. Christ still stands eternal, but it’s hard for us here with the clay bodies and broken hearts.
Seven years it’s been, and this is now my story. Six days God created and on the seventh he rested. Six years I have been working, trying to fix, searching for the healing. But rest has come. I’m still afraid. This daughter of mine will be brought from my womb in a week, and I don’t know what will happen to her or I. The trauma never quite lets go of your imagination, and the hard thing is I’m no longer naive, I know the hard script can replay in a thousand different ways.
But there is nothing I can do – except rest. My doctor says to eat and sleep and wait on the One who gives the life because we don’t. He speaks wise words and no matter what I think I have done these years, this is all I can ever do. Be still and know that He is God.
Seven years and I am resting in the brokenness – counting all the seeds that my son planted in his short time here, and that have grown.
I look at Jeremiah and see pure miracle, catching my breath because can anything here be this perfect, this beautiful? If I love too hard will I break? Am I only to fix my eyes on the eternal because everything here can be stolen from me? But as I watch blond hair run through golden light and growing boys learn and speak I know this is the eternal put on flesh. Christ came to us in the temporary, he walked and ate, wept and bled with us because there was no other way to fully love. I’m splitting right open into love like my body will to bring this baby – into the wise foolishness of wanting only to hold them, nourish them, gaze at their bodies growing strong and eyes sparkling – into rest.
I have worn this story so imperfectly, but it is the one my Creator has given me. I am not a mother standing strong and sure, I am a women broken and given more than she deserves. I pray for grace to honor all this beauty, this exquisite story.
One day we will meet – I love you Joshua
// polaroid image taken of me and baby girl at 36 weeks by my love Jesse
