Healing, But Not Whole

I am thrilled to welcome back to Wanted Chosen Planned Jenny Albers! She is graciously giving us what I might call PART 2 to her initial guest post about losing her baby, called “Grateful Despite the Grief” (click here to read it). I appreciate the vantage point Jenny takes when viewing life. With no further delay, here we go.

 

Healing, But Not Whole

Healed. A word that, according to Merriam-Webster, means to “make free from injury or disease: to make sound or whole.”

 

After three years of missing my baby, Micah, I don’t believe I will ever be completely healed. My heart has a permanent injury, a hole that will never be filled. And our family is missing one, making wholeness an impossibility.

 

But time has allowed for healing, although I can’t say exactly how the healing occurred.

 

I suppose it happened as I spent months in isolation, hiding from a world that hadn’t stopped to notice the fact that someone was missing. A world in which people shamelessly advertised their good fortune while seemingly minimizing my misfortune. Healing must have happened as I remained on the fringes of society in order to protect my heart from further damage.

 

I suppose it happened as the tears dripped from my eyes day after day; tears that I had no control over. In public and private, they flowed down my face like a river of sorrow that was being released from a dam. I thought that maybe the tears would drown me, and secretly wished they would.

 

I suppose it happened as I lay on my yoga mat week after week, the teardrops mixing with beads of sweat, disguising my pain and heartache. The yoga instructor advising the release of pain and acceptance of the present while I thought I could accept the pain if only I could be released from the present.

 

 

I suppose it happened as I searched for the face of God, and finally saw it when I looked in the mirror. I saw God in my own reflection when I realized that if it weren’t for him, I would no longer be around to see my face staring back at me. For without a divine intervention, I would have certainly died, either by my own hands or from a physical response to my crumbled heart and broken soul.

 

I suppose it happened that day, months later, when I surrendered to God. When the obsessing about the “whys, whens, and what-ifs” became too overwhelming. When the longing for one baby and the desire for another had consumed every part of me, becoming more than I could bear.

 

I suppose it happened when I realized my body had allowed me the opportunity to bear another child, this time a living one. A realization that new life could come after death. I could finally forgive my body and God, both of whom I held responsible for Micah’s death.

 

I suppose it happened that day when I was actually glad to be alive, thankful that I hadn’t drowned in my tears, taken my own life, of died from a broken heart. It was the day when the sun reappeared and I gazed at my rainbow in awe.

 

Healing has happened in a series of moments over the course of time. It wasn’t one particular thing that guided me out of the darkness and back into the light. But small moments in which pain was slowly released, leaving room for small bursts of hope to enter my heart and soul. And through the passage of time, hope grew, as much hope as could be expected for a life lived on this earth. The death of our baby is still a reality, leaving a permanent hole in my heart and in our family. And although I will never be whole, I am thankful for the healing.

 

Written By: Jenny Albers at Manna in the Madness