My parents sent a box of gifts to Virginia last Christmas, and Dad had thrown in some of my old papers that he had found when he was cleaning.
There was a stack of manila envelopes and an old journal with pictures of babies in flower costumes on it, and I wondered what obnoxiousness I had written in it over ten years ago. My first inclination was to throw it all away- anything I have lived without for over ten years can’t be that important right?
Curiosity won though. I opened the purple journal, bracing myself for bad writing and immature reflections on life in my teens or twenties.
The date on the first page started the tears immediately: June 18, 1999. It was dated the week we found out we were several weeks pregnant with our first baby~ the one that died in the darkness of my womb a couple months later. The lines were filled with hope and prayers for our sweet baby. Fear and excitement spilled in black ink. Then there was the half-smeared entry, Tuesday, August 17, 1999 when everything went dark. The pages wept with longing, guilt, and grief.
Nearly twelve years collapsed, and I felt the weight of sitting in the emergency room that day waiting for the ultrasound results—already knowing the truth, staring at my chipped toe nail polish, wishing I had fixed the polish that morning, wondering if I was worthy to take care of a baby if I couldn’t even manage toenail polish. I was irrational and bent.
We didn’t make a decision to try again, we just tried to forget. I sat in church for weeks, tissues wadded in my fists, trying to dab my eyes without anyone noticing. My beautiful pastor sent me a note that expressed that he saw my pain each week, and that he and his wife shared our grief. He didn’t preach or pass along pacifying platitudes about how “God’s will is best.” That might have been true, but it does not help you begin breathing again. We didn’t talk about our loss until much later, so it was just there. Waiting. Numbing. Overwhelming.
I felt like all I could do was breathe, and I didn’t want to even breathe some days.
Then, impossibly, we were pregnant with our oldest son. We held our breath for nine months. He kept breathing despite my fear and flutterings. We named him Ransom~ son of the shield. Sometimes, you survive grief by just breathing. Even if it is a shallow breath, air flowing in and out is an offering of faith. When our minds and hearts have given up, our lungs involuntarily express our faith. Over time, the clutching that seems to constrict every breath loosens ever so slightly. We catch enough air to smile again, maybe to chuckle. And then, impossibly, we find that there is still hope in a living, breathing faith. Hang on and keep breathing.