Sunday, July 30, 2017

feathery wisps

Dear Nahum,


It surprised me. I was at a follow-up appointment and the doctor said she would do an ultrasound. I lay down for the inspection without really thinking twice about what was happening — after all, I had so many ultrasounds in the last eight months. But I kind of forgot what this scan would show, and the surprise was a sad one: on the screen we saw my womb, but there was no Nahum in it.

Every other time I remember seeing my womb, you were there. First as something so small and "gummi bear”-like, and later as a full-grown baby boy. But this time my womb was just an empty sack...
there was no woosh-woosh of your heart beat,
no lanky limbs rolling and punching,
no giggles when the doctor felt you head-butt her…
no Nahum.

Just a feathery wisp of fluid which the doctor pleasantly told me would
soon
be
gone.

Nahum, sometimes I fear that the memories we made with you are like that feathery wisp in my womb — short-lived, on their way out. Even just a few weeks after meeting you, I worry that I will forget the precious details of our short time with you. Forget the other-earthly thrill of seeing and touching you for the first time. Forget how soft your skin was. Forget how much you weighed in my arms. Forget watching Grandma give you your first bath and dress you. Forget how Dad and Grandpa's tears bathed you again. Forget how the doctor went out of his way to tell us how beautiful your hands were.... Forget, because we have no fresh, new memories of you to keep replacing the older, fading ones.

Giving birth to a baby that most people didn't get to meet or hold feels like what the Bible calls "giving birth to the wind". I guess that is why I write, Nahum. Why I will make scrapbooks of your cards and albums of your pictures. Why we will talk about you regularly, especially with any little brothers or sisters God gives to you.

You were the first to inhabit my womb,
and we will never forget you.
Your place in my womb may have been temporary,
but you have a permanent place in our hearts.

Mom

Saturday, July 22, 2017

compassion

Dear Nahum,


The other day I dealt with a cashier who was not particularly friendly. She was offering service, but not with a smile.

If this had happened eight months ago, I would have felt a bit grouchy about her unpleasant demeanour. Why couldn't she just smile? As you know, I was the type who would play funny pranks, wear a dinosaur hat just to get a reaction out of people, and paste smiley face stickers on your dad’s water bottle, wallet and Bible. I didn’t understand, when I met a serious stranger, why they couldn’t be a bit more pleasant.

But you made me understand, Nahum, that smiling isn't always possible. Now, when I see someone who can’t seem to smile in public, I can relate. There were days in the past eight months when Dad and I had a hard time smiling, too. You taught me to be slower to judge people whose story I don't know, whose suffering I have not experienced. You taught me to be more compassionate.

You might like to know that the other day after I saw the sad-looking cashier, I reminded myself of this: Maybe that person just got a heart-breaking diagnosis.
And just that thought made me want to give that person the benefit of the doubt. To not expect her to conjure up a fake smile. To give an extra measure of grace and compassion, just in case.

It makes me sad to think that people who meet our family in the future won't meet you, Nahum. After all, as the social worker told me just days after we received your diagnosis, you are and always will be our firstborn! But maybe if we remember what God used you to teach us, and reach out to others with extra sensitivity and compassion — which you helped us to learn — in a small way they will meet you, after all!

With appreciation,

Mom

Friday, July 14, 2017

goodness and mercy

Dear Nahum,


A few weeks before you were born, the words at the end of Psalm 23 tripped me up: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, all the days of my life..." 

"All the days of my life, God?"
I almost could not believe those words, as I prepared for your delivery.
"What about the day when my newborn son dies?"
"What kind of goodness and mercy will I see on that day, God?"
I couldn't really imagine it.

Last night, as I prepared a slideshow for the celebration of your life, I remembered Psalm 23:6 again. My thoughts from a few weeks ago came back to me, and I realized that even on the day of your birth and death, God's goodness and mercy followed me. 

Here are a few significant ways in which I noticed it:
  • Even though the hours before you were born were difficult, God was good to give me a clear enough mind, a settled enough spirit and a strong enough body to carry through to the end of the delivery. 
  • In His mercy, God timed your 7:33am birth perfectly. Fresh staff was just starting their morning shift and helped the tired staff who were finishing a long night with us. When the midwives were running out of ideas to know how to encourage you to come, new midwives and doctors showed up to help. Also, our friends on this side of the pond were just waking up right around the time we needed prayer the most. They checked their phones and prayed us through the last hour before you were born. 
  • You got stuck making your exit, and the doctors decided I needed to be put under general anaesthetic for you to be removed. But minutes before I was to be put under general anaesthetic, God gave me one more contraction and you came sliding out miraculously. I was finally relieved from incredible pain the moment you came out, and Dad was not left to cry over your body while waiting for me to awake from the anaesthetic — I will forever be thankful for this miracle of mercy.
  • When I first held you on my chest, God gave me fullness of joy. You made me a mother and just being able to see you, touch you, and hold you was gift of God's goodness. I think I expected to weep upon seeing you (as when I saw you, I could see your head was damaged) but somehow I could only smile over you, and gush over you. What a wonderful boy you were, and are!
God's Word proved my fainting heart wrong again. God's goodness and mercy followed me, even on the day of your birth and death, and always will — all the days of my life!

Mom

Monday, July 10, 2017

three hours of darkness

Dear Nahum,


Two mornings after your birth, I woke up in my hospital bed crying. It almost seemed like my tears had started before I awoke. As I lay there on the pastel yellow hospital sheets, aching for you before I was almost even conscious of what I was doing, the sequence of my thoughts was as follows:
  1. I'm awake.
  2. I'm crying.
  3. God the Father mourned His Son, too. 
Along with my tears came the thought of the three hours of darkness that God the Father brought "over the whole land" as His Son was dying. 

Three hours in which God was not
checking His phone,
doing His freelance work,
inviting over guests, or
talking to friends.

Three hours that were separated for darkness —
three black hours,
three somber hours,
three inexpressibly sad hours.

I don't know what our mourning for you will look like, but remembering that God mourned His Son's death gave me some freedom. Freedom to let my tears soak through my sleep mask if they need to. Freedom to not think I have to work up some happy when I'm struggling with our loss. Freedom, not to be self-centered, but to genuinely acknowledge
how deeply sin has broken our world,
how deeply that brokenness has hurt us,
and how deeply we long for Jesus to heal our broken world.

We will mourn with our own version of "three hours of darkness". And that's not only OK, I think it's right. Because so much in this world has gone wrong.

Mom


PS - Another thought came to me as I was writing this letter. God the Father willingly saw His Son die, so that when I saw you die, I would have hope. What kind of God is this, that He would choose His own suffering in order to someday end our suffering? He is clearly not a God who wishes evil upon us. Nahum, this is the God to whom we entrust both you and ourselves.

Saturday, July 8, 2017

you

Dear Nahum, 


The table is filling with casseroles
the counter with baked goods
the window sills with plants
the hallway with cards
the inboxes with messages 

All good things,
from kind people 
who offer comfort

But really I just want
you,
my sweet, sweet child.

Mom

Thursday, July 6, 2017

a child of the light

Dear Nahum,


The church bells outside the hospital window ring six o'clock this morning. Yesterday morning at this same time Mom (and Dad) were experiencing the agonies of childbirth (in different ways) and don't remember hearing the church bells.

After labouring through the night, Mom started to realize that we probably wouldn't meet you until after daybreak. The midwife was distressed — although not as much as we were — that you were taking so long to meet us, but she told us,
"Your son is waiting. He wants to be born in the light."

Even in her agony, the midwife's words stood out to Mom because of the imagery from Thessalonians:
Nahum, "you are [a child] of the light and of the day; 
[you] don't belong to darkness and night." 

You are a child of the light, Nahum John, born at 7:33am on July 5, 2017 — after the sun rose. A good gift, given to us by the Father of Lights with whom there is no changing, no darkness, and no shadow. Taken back by Him just after the sun rose yesterday morning.

There are no words to accurately describe our joy or our grief, upon meeting and losing you in the same instant. Your short life changed our lives forever; you are our little "child of the light."

Mom and Dad