Love is Worth it All

Today I will be speaking at a memorial service for families who have lost babies. I am remembering Zachary today, missing him as always and wishing he was in my arms. I prepared the words I share with the utmost care, expressing my journey in the best way I know how. I hope that it can be an encouragement to even just one person who hears or for any one of you who reads it here. Please, remember with me…

Did the world change over night?

Food lacks a hint of flavor, the sky now an off shade of grey. My friends seem distant, career a mere time clock in mundane routine. Who is this person in the mirror? This weathered soul looking back at me? This is not my life.

The world did not change. I changed.

I changed the moment my son was diagnosed for death when I was 25 weeks pregnant with his life and 26 years pregnant with his future. I changed at his birth and I changed at our brief “hello” followed by I-love-you-kisses as he passed beyond my reach.

This is my new normal, so they say.

Yet, there is nothing normal about life after the loss of so great a love story as a mother for her child. Normal is waking up five times in the night to breastfeed. Normal is peanut butter and jam sandwiches and preschool play. Normal is morning cuddles followed by breakfast arguments. Normal is not having to call itself normal because it just is.

I have chosen to replace ‘normal’ with ‘life’, instead of ‘new normal’, this is my ‘new life’. Life because I have walked through the fire of hell and somehow survived to tell the tale. Life because I have returned to the task of learning how to live each day, like a baby, born into a strange land where nothing is normal but everything is new.

Somehow with death came the gift of life, to appreciate the world through new eyes, like a child, a warm sunrise, good health, wrinkles, a kiss, camping in the rain, reading by the fire, a puzzle, a laugh – what a privilege it is to re-learn these joys when grown. To learn, in the face of great sacrifice, that love, even in so small a package, is worth it all.

A child grows within me once more but this is not then, this is not my normal, this is my ‘new life.’ My third pregnancy has become like my first, not in novel giddiness but in awed wonder and nervous worry. Yet, I somehow feel prepared for whatever may come, the fire of loss having burnt to ash all doubt in my heart, yes, a child is worth the risk, love is worth it all.

My son lives on in his ‘new life’ as well, in my heart, in the palm of God’s hand, in the majesty of the mountains, in the sparkle of my husband’s eye. His name is ever on my tongue and I will teach my daughter and how ever many children I am blessed to bear: you have a brother, there is more to life than what we can see or touch, you are a part of something greater, a family, not unified by physical presence but by a love, so great, it is worth it all.

In this ‘new life’ I have found the meaning I’ve always searched for, the passion that I’d never fully known, and the truest, purest, most holy and scared love. Love that is now and will always and forever be: worth it all.

Love to you today as you remember.