I do not want to blog about this but I feel like I am supposed to. I do not give this much thought nor have I over the past 14 years but every once in a while it crosses my mind. It is usually at very random times for very random reasons and for the most part it is just a thought and then I move on with life. When my husband and I first got engaged I always told him I wanted five children. I love kids and I think I always have. And although I only have three children that live with me, I will someday have all five of my children with me in heaven; the two I miscarried and the three who call me Mom.
Of course I cried when I miscarried my first child, but I had Hannah then (my firstborn) and a dear teacher who worked with me at the high school where I taught had just lost a child full term. It was difficult to miscarry at 12 weeks, but I knew it could have been much, much worse. When I was 18 weeks pregnant with my youngest daughter I found out that I was carrying a second baby but it had not developed. Twins. It would have been amazing to have twins, but I knew the Lord knew that with two other children under the age of four, a husband who traveled and both our families living on the opposite end of the country from us at the time, twins would have caused me to start smoking again. So I had a good long cry and I moved on. Within a few months I was so busy with three kids that I had no choice anyway.
I really never thought much about my other two children until I read the book Heaven is for Real. In the book the little boy who visits heaven meets the sister his mother had miscarried before he was born. Whoa, wait a minute. I never really thought about that. My two babies are in heaven and we will all get to meet someday. Well bring me a box of Kleenex because I cried uncontrollably for a long, long time when I thought about that. I wondered if they were boys or girls. Did they look like me or Chris. Did they have names? Of course they must. What are they? I was a mess of snot and tears and then I stopped. Eventually, I stopped crying. And yes, if I think about it long enough I could cry about it again, but I usually don’t because at the end of the day I still have three children here and two in heaven.
I’m not sure why I am feeling led to blog about this, but as I have thought about this today I have been thankful that God has equipped me kind of like a guy in this arena. My miscarriages were very sad, but I don’t really think about them very often; I didn’t even a few months after I had them. Do I think I have not dealt with the pain of losing those babies or that I am in denial? Do I think I have repressed pain or loss that will manifest itself in me adopting a baby kitten or two? I don’t think so. But I do think that if I sat around and allowed myself to think about those two little browned-eyed Asian, Irish, Italian sweetie pies, I would be pretty sad a lot of the time. But a lot of the time, nothing would change about the fact that those babies are in heaven and not with me.
“Dear Lord, Thank you for helping me write this blog without crying (I’m too tired for that today). Thank you for helping me being obedient in writing it because you know I didn’t want to. I pray God for whoever this might bless today. I pray for someone who has suffered great loss and is hurting who needs to, as Jill Briscoe says, have a good cry, pull themselves up by their boot straps and then get up and keep living life. Everyone’s hurt and loss and pain is processed differently, but I pray God that you will help them find comfort somehow today in knowing You care and You love them and that you are holding in Your arms those that we love and have lost until we get to be together again someday. OK, so now I am crying so please give my babies a squeeze and a kiss. In Your Name, Amen.”