International Bereaved Mother's Day

I know that many people spent the weekend celebrating Cinco de Mayo with friends & family and Mexican fiestas.

But did you know that May 6^th, being the 1^st Sunday in May, is International Bereaved Mother’s Day?

This day was established in 2010 as a special day set aside to honor and celebrate mothers who carry some, if not all, of their children in their hearts rather than in their arms. In our modern society, mothers who are grieving the death of their babies or children are often forgotten. Traditional Mother’s Day proves to be an emotionally difficult day for so many mothers around the world.

So on this special day each year these mothers can come together to celebrate their connection with one another, their children, and their hope for the future. They look at their ultra sound pictures, pictures they have of their lost ones, polish their urns, lay flowers at their graves, visit special places, and light candles in their memories.

So on this day, I’d like to honor my many friends who hold some, even all, of their precious ones in their hearts and memories. You are beautiful women and mothers. I admire your spirits—that you are living such beautiful lives is a tribute to all your children.

I love you all!

Thank you to Carly Marie for the information on International Bereaved Mother's Day

Sweet Remembrance (part 2)

Some may say that one year ago, on this day,

a light went out of the world.

They are wrong.

While you are no longer here with us, your presence is felt

and your light shines brightly.

Few of us had the pleasure of knowing you "in real life,"

but many of us know your story:

Your Life:

The Five Days that truly did Change the World.

Today, once again, we stand with your parents in their grief...but we also celebrate the gift you are.

The Little Prince

If you have not read this book, I highly recommend it. It was written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in 1943 and remains relevant and touching nearly 70 years later.

It is a story of  eloquent observations... and with each reading, different elements are highlighted to the reader. It is heart-wrenching, up-lifting, inspiring. It is a book like none other. I am reading it again, for the billionth time, per the recommendation of my sis(in-law). (Thanks, Dani!!) And this time, I read it with Demetri in mind...our own sweet little prince...

If you have not read it, I do not want spoil it for you...if you have read it, you will understand these quotes.... Either way, they are beautiful....

I did not know what to say to him. I felt awkward and blundering. I did not know how I could reach him, where I could overtake him and go on hand in hand with him once more.

It is such a secret place, the land of tears.

On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

(It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.)

"The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen...The desert is beautiful...What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well..." said the little prince

Yes...the stars, the desert--what gives them their beauty is something invisible!"

As the little prince dropped off to sleep, I took him in my arms and set out walking once more. I felt deeply moved, and stirred. It seemed to me that I was carrying a very fragile treasure. It seemed to me, even, that there was nothing more fragile on all the Earth.....I said to myself "What I see here is nothing but a shell. What is most important is invisible....What moves me so deeply, about this little prince who is sleeping here, is his loyalty to a flower--the image of a rose that shines through his whole being like the flame of a lamp, even when he is asleep..." And I felt him to be more fragile, as if he himself were a flame that might be extinguished by a little puff of wind....And as I walked on so, I found the well, at daybreak.

He laughed, touched the rope, and set the pulley to working. And the pulley moaned..."Do you hear ?"said the little prince. "We have wakened the well and it is singing."

"The thing that is important is the thing not seen... It is just as it is with the flower. If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers... It is just as it is with the water. Because of the pulley, and the rope, what you gave me to drink was like music... And at night you will look up at the stars. Where I live everything is so small that I cannot show you where my star is to be found. It is better, like that. My star will just be one of the stars for you. And so you will love to watch all the stars in the heavens...They will all be your friends...

"You--you alone--will have the stars as no one else has them... In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of the stars I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night... And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure...

"It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh." And the little prince laughed again.

When I succeeded in catching up with him he was walking along with a quick and resolute step. He said to me merely: "Ah! There you are..." And he took me by the hand. But he was still worrying. "You will suffer. I shall look as though I were dead; and that will not be true...You understand...It is too far. I cannot carry this body with me. It is too heavy. ... But it will be like an old abandoned shell. There is nothing sad about old shells."

 ....He made one more effort:

"You know, it will be very nice. I, too, shall look at the stars. All the stars will be wells with a rusty pulley. All the stars will pour out fresh water for me to drink...."

"That will be so amusing! You will have five hundred million little bells, and I shall have five hundred million springs of fresh water." And he said nothing more, because he was crying...

And so, I shall look up to the heavens with joy because I know that living there with Christ, laughing there, drinking deeply there is our little prince, Demetri, who is no longer here with us but lives forever in a place that is prepared and waiting for us, one day, when our journey is over, to join him.

Finding Inspiration in Surprising Places

If you look on my side-bar, you'll see different blogs I follow. Some are "in-real-life" friends while others are known to me via their blog only. One of these "strangers" is Cora's mom, to whom I was introduced through Maddie & Binky's mom (whom, I think, I may have met via MckMama-though I'm not sure...it could have been through Carter's mom!),and now Cora's mom has lead me to the blog written by Joel's mom.

These women are all courageous bloggers who have shared the triumphs and tragedies within their families. Today, I was struck by some of the things Joel's mom, Sara, wrote within days of the passing of her son. Her blog is called "Joel Lives" and this is what she wrote:

"....we look forward to sharing more of our amazing son with you, and to rejoicing that he is forever in heaven, safe and perfect. But we also know that Saturday will give us all a chance to grieve together, to share in the sadness that we don't get to know Joel on this earth, to mourn our loss...Everyday I wake up is one day further away from the last time I kissed his beautiful face, but also one day closer to seeing him again - it's terrible and wonderful all at the same time. God is comforting us, through the kind words of friends and strangers and the slow passage of time as the days continue on without our baby." (Bold highlights mine)

Days later, Sara went on to say:
"I want to tell all of you how I fight to say "Our son lives in heaven" instead of "our son died". It is so much easier to give death that sting and finality and I refuse because I know that our God reigns, even over the grave and he holds our Joel, our living Joel, in heaven. It feels like it is over here on earth, but I know it is not, and I won't give in to the temptation to make it sound like his life has ended. It has not. Our son lives in heaven. I want to tell all of you that providence is real, that grace exists and I see it in our lives...daily."
That statement is so breath-taking that the whole bit ought to be highlighted in bold! And so inspirational.



A month later, Sara wrote:
"I am glad that my Joel lives in heaven. I miss him in a way that can still suck the breath and hope right out of my spirit, but I will never mourn for him. I mourn for me, and for all of us who would have shared a lifetime with our son."

Please note that Sara's blog goes on to talk about the ups & downs of living here on earth while her son lives on in heaven, but I wanted to share the above passages written early on in their family's journey because I truly believe them to be inspirational and they infused me with hope.

My heartfelt thanks & prayers go out to these courageous families who have allowed total strangers to peek into their lives. They bring comfort, inspiration, understanding, and hope.

I wanted to share that hope with those who read my blog--though it is highly possible that no one actually does! But writing these posts are theraputic for me, so I will continue to "blog on"!

Stretcher, Please

Someone recently said the following to me:
"I just wish babies would stop dying. It feels like God is playing some sort of sick joke on humanity. Why do Christians go to all the trouble to prevent abortions when God lets loved and wanted babies die every day???????????"

I wish I had a simple answer: but I don’t.

I wish I had any answer: but I don’t.

But it did get me to thinking while I lay awake in the middle of the night. Please note: these are just my musings. I am not a theologian or philosopher or anyone special. But the following thoughts ran through my head….

The first thing I thought of was a quote by Mother Teresa, which I had read on the very day the above was posed to me (and yes—I know the questions were technically rhetorical, but, as I said, they got me thinking).

Mother Teresa said the following: The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between.

Deeply simply; simply deep. So, for me, I guess that answers the abortion portion. I sure never could have thought of such a great answer on my own!

Mother Teresa also said: I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. Whoa!!! Wish I could say that. However, she also went on to say that, “We are all pencils in the hand of God.” Ok—so that is what I’ll try to be here, hoping against hope that that doesn’t sound superior or as though I have the answers or that I am “channeling” God.

So, back to the “…God lets loved and wanted babies die every day???????????” part.

No easy answers there either. And no great quotes to tie it all up neatly in a pretty package. But here's my thoughts....

I have to admit to being very angry at God when my nephew first died. Furious. I wanted to simply scream and scream and scream….but mostly I just moaned, “Why, why, why?????” and “No, no, no!” I felt as though God had actually kidnapped D from us, because my inner-most belief was and is that my nephew is with the Lord—it’s just that I really wanted (and still do) him to be here with us.

But here is my issue with blaming God or with thinking He took D from us: if God “did this” to us, then where would I go for comfort??? Who would I turn to when life’s sorrows are too big for me to handle on my own? How could I put my faith and trust in a God that could be a kidnapper?

I couldn’t. And so slowly it dawned on me that it all came down to semantics (I was an English major, after all). If I believed that God took D, then He could not be the God I know to be loving and caring. However, if I believed, instead, that God received D upon his death, then His core character held true to all I’ve believed.

And so I choose to believe that God received my nephew into His kingdom with gladness—because that’s what He says he does when one of His own is received into His kingdom. However, I also know that the Holy Spirit is not called “The Comforter” just because it sounds good. He is our comforter in times of need. In fact, Jesus even says in Matthew 5 (The Sermon on the Mount): “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” And so I choose to seek comfort from the Comforter because if I do not, I know I would be swallowed up by the darkness of grief and I would drown in a sea of sorrow.

(In reading the following don't make the mistake of thinking I'm over my grief or that I'm done mourning, 'cause I'm not. In fact I think I'm mourning just as much, but in a different way. And I still get angry: but the anger has shifted--it's no longer pointed at God; it's just sometimes there but with no target to throw it at. Case in point: last week when I had to go to the doctor because I was so upset that I'd had a panic attack that lasted three hours and then I lost it in the reception area and started screaming insanely. I'm really quite lucky I wasn't locked away!)

I think, that when things like a child’s death (or any horrendous, earth-shattering loss or trauma happen) that, it is normal to question God; to have our faith shaken. The thing to pray against is to not have our faith shattered or destroyed.

But how can you pray when your faith is shaken? For me, it is a fairly simple prayer (often referred to as “The Jesus Prayer”): “Oh, Jesus, please, help.” Or simply, “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus.” Or any number of variations on this simple theme!!! And then there is the prayer I’ve muttered often over the past 7 weeks: “Please don’t let me lose my faith in you…remind me of Who you really are…”

I have also been thinking that perhaps there is a problem of Gods…..No, no: I don’t mean god other than Christ Jesus. I mean there’s the God of the Bible and then there’s the God we Western Civilizations have crafted. As I came out of my anger at God for taking D, and my anger at God for not sparing D, and my anger at God for not saving D, I came to the shocking realization that our modern or Western (or however you choose to term it) civilization has taken to treating God a bit like a magical performer: we ask/demand; He must, therefore, perform. We don’t want to be accustomed to sorrow or loss, so we have crafted our God to not be the sort to allow such things to touch us. And then we are so shocked when He doesn’t perform as commanded or such horrors do touch us.

Oddly enough, in all the names God gave Himself (Counselor, Comforter, Provider, Healer, etc), not once did He call Himself “Circus Act” or “Performer.”

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized (to my limited knowledge) that not once in the Bible does God say that we wouldn’t have sorrows here on earth; that we wouldn’t know death or grief; that there wouldn’t be natural disasters nor the evilness of man against man. In fact, I’m pretty sure somewhere in there Jesus even said we would experience these things (and more).

I think this is one of the reasons we, as Christians, so look forward to getting to heaven: it means getting out of here! It means being reunited with those we love who were also lovers of Christ. But best of all it means being with Him.

In fact, John, in Revelations 21, when he is shown the kingdom of heaven says: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Italics mine)


That’s what I’m talking about!! And that is what I am looking forward to! So for now, I continue to grieve, because no amount of “revelation” removes the loss of D from me—I remain in my dingy in the ocean: but at least I’m in the dingy and haven’t been swept overboard yet. But I’m also not alone in the boat: I know my Comforter is there with me, even when I feel Him not.

I know that I am not grieving alone: Christ is grieving with me, beside me. And He is good at it: Isaiah told us that Jesus would be a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. I know that holds true for today.

In fact, since I’m quoting scripture, one of my favorite verses is John 11: 35: “Jesus wept.”…and not because it is short and easy to remember but because I learned a long time ago that the word we ineptly translated as “wept” actually meant that Jesus entered into mourning and wept with his friends over the loss of their brother: he broke down and cried and got snotty-nosed with them…knowing all along that he was going to raise their brother from the dead.

(Irreverent side note: I’ve always felt sorry for poor Lazarus: he had to die twice; I bet the 2nd time he hoped and prayed to just stay in heaven & not have to come back to earth…again!)

And so I will not be embarrassed to get snotty-nosed in front of my God. And I will not expect Him to magically make everything ok. But I know that He is still a healer and a comforter and a provider and I look to Him to take care of me and my family—‘cause I know I can’t.

(Newsflash to self: I am not God and cannot right all wrongs or take care of everyone else’s pain or sorrow!)

So there you have it. My thoughts over the past few days. Perhaps they are not the most theologically sound, but they ring pretty true to me.

And for those who say Christ doesn’t exist and/or I’m just using Him as a crutch, let me correct you: I know he exists and I am using Him as a stretcher: I’m not ready for crutches yet!