Coming Home & Carried

Coming Home & Carried

It has been three and a half months since losing our sweet little girl, Naomi. I have been wanting to sit down and write down this post for some time and just haven’t found the energy or words. In some ways, I think I have been waiting until I get to the point in my grief where I have a few profound, summed up points or things to share about what I have learned in the light of her life and death. Yet, I’ve realized that grief doesn’t work like that nor do I think the Lord intends that. There is never going to be a point where I have processed it all completely or put away my grief into some imaginary box. I am learning what grief really is -- grief is a lifelong journey and it is not linear. When people ask me how I am doing right now, I usually tell them that it just hurts. So badly. Still. My heart has been broken and a broken heart will hurt for some time. Do I feel confident that layers of healing will happen? Absolutely. And yet, I am realistic that on this side of heaven, there won’t be complete healing. This is life after Naomi, life after the loss of someone we loved so dearly and I am honestly still trying to figure out what that looks like. A few weeks ago, Joseph and I were watching the final movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I can laugh about it now, but I was weeping at the end of The Return of the King as Frodo returned home to the Shire and said “How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold.” I cried to Joseph that that was exactly how I felt coming home from the hospital without Naomi and trying to figure out how to move forward. How could I possibly pick up the threads of my old life when so much of it felt lost -- I had beheld death in the frame of the little girl who has such a big part of my heart. My faith in God seemed shattered (and now deepened) and was in the process of being rebuilt and stretched as I asked questions I’ve never asked and had doubts I had never before had. I had lost a huge sense of naivete about life in this broken world and the kind of sorrow I am not immune to. Yet, when I think of one theme of the earliest months of my grief journey, it is “carried”. By the Lord. I left that hospital feeling like I would shrivel up and die from the ache of it all. I knew I wouldn’t survive unless the Lord carried me and provided for me every single moment. And He did and He has. Yet, none of it has been easy.

In the earliest weeks, grief was a dark, constant, all-consuming and lonely companion. So lonely. Three months out, I can say that I have normal days or at least parts of my days, but this grief is deeply layered and comes in waves. Intense waves and soft waves, violent waves and quiet waves. I’m accepting that this is part of my journey on this side of Naomi’s earthly life and often, the weight of knowing I will live with this lifelong yearning for her is so incredibly heavy. Now that (most of) the shock of Naomi’s death has passed, I’ve settled into what can often feel like such a low and depressed state of moving forward in our life here without her. So if you are here now with me in this heavy space of grief and life after losing a baby so precious and desired, thank you for reading. It is such a heavy space to be and I am so deeply grateful for the family and friends who have walked through this dark valley with me, who have wept with me, wrestled and doubted with me, hoped with me and just grieved with me. I have come to know that the deeper I ache, the deeper I can hope. And I am just so grateful for the people who have gone back and forth between the ache and the hope with me.

A Dark Night of My Soul

So, where to start? As I’ve said, none of my grief has been linear and it has been messy, and so this post will be messy too. Let’s start with my faith in God because that is the undercurrent of everything. Honestly, my faith has felt so shaken and often so weak. Before she died, I think I would have assumed grief wouldn’t hurt so badly with the hope of the Resurrection. In the days after Naomi’s death, I found myself asking the Lord “What even IS the hope of the resurrection?” It felt so far away, so not comforting to my broken heart. I remember truly wondering if I would ever reconcile the reality of Naomi’s death with the God I had trusted for so long. God felt really distant to me and His Word rang very hollow in my ears. It really felt like a dark night or abyss of my soul. I know His nearness now and I really have encountered true hope in His Word and I will share that, so keep reading. But there is no shortcutting through grief and the dark space it can bring one into. I’ve come to internalize and cherish that God doesn’t want our performances, He wants our hearts open to Him -- even if they are broken or filled with doubts, anguish and questions. His power truly is made perfect in weakness. I have let go of insecurities of my doubts, anger and big questions and know so deeply now that those same doubts, anger and big questions don’t change Him or His love for me and they don’t scare Him. He is big enough for all of them and He knows them before I verbalize them to Him. If I’m honest, before she died I would have hoped that tragedy would have provoked the kind of response in me that would just say with joy “You are still so good!” Yet, for the earliest weeks, I found myself just groaning “I know you are there God but OW, this hurts so so badly and I can’t fathom how you are letting me experience this kind of pain”. And so I rest in the beauty of being free to come to God with my honest, hurting heart. That’s why we sing “He Will Hold Me Fast”. He does the holding when we have nothing left to give. Once again, I have been so blessed by the friends and family who have just been able to cry with me in the sadness and hard questions, not rushing me, judging me or putting a band-aid on it. I’m so thankful for a God who does the same.

God has truly met me in my darkest moments and doubts and helped me to see His active hand and know His presence. I still often cry out to Him with these doubts -- “Why did you allow this? I see how you are providing, but why didn’t you provide differently?”. I now know that the living God is always actively working and empathetically attentive to our broken circumstances, and yet amidst such deep heartbreak, it can be so hard to believe.

 

Raging at Death

When I think back on her death, one of the most striking provisions started about two weeks before she died when God put a book that would become so dear and helpful to me after Naomi’s death. I started reading Prayer in the Night by Tish Harrison Warren. Navigating her own pregnancy losses and death of her father in a short time span, Warren wrestles authentically with the reality that God is good and yet there is so much suffering in the world. It was this statement in one of the earliest chapters that struck a deep chord in my heart: “God does not keep all bad things from happening to us. He cannot be trusted to do that because he never made that promise . . . But if God cannot be trusted to keep bad things from happening to us, how can he be trusted at all?” (p. 22). The truth of this in no way negates God’s goodness or love for us, but it did feel like a big, hard pill to swallow. Before Naomi’s death, I would have always said that I knew I would encounter suffering and the brokenness of this world in very personal ways in this life. And yet, this also was very difficult to think about as I would like to think that out of God’s love for me, there would be certain realms or kinds of suffering I just wouldn’t have to know. In the coming weeks as I would deliver my sweet stillborn girl, a lot of my false beliefs about God came to the surface and most surrounded this very truth. That day in the hospital, I felt betrayed by God as if He had made me a promise of a pain-free life and broken it. In the previous blog post, I admitted that some views of God shattered in that triage room. And yet, they needed to be. God is truly good, truly loves me, and yet, this world is broken and He does allow suffering for reasons I won’t fully know in this life.

 I had read about a third of the book before Naomi died and after we said goodbye to her body and were waiting to leave the hospital that Wednesday morning, I opened to the following: “Ground zero of our human experience of vulnerability is the fact that we all will die, ourselves and everyone we love. I utterly hate this. One thing that draws me to Christianity is that we are allowed to hate death. I don’t have to act as if the darkness is any less dark than it is. I don’t have to stoically accept it as part of the circle of life. Death is an enemy . . . If we sentimentalize death and minimize its brutality, we end up, often unwittingly, belittling the hope of resurrection. ” (p. 116-117). Upon reading that, Joseph and I felt the space we needed to just rage at death for the enemy that it is. While we have this beautiful hope that death was not the end of Naomi’s story and it won’t be the end of ours, it is still an Enemy that Jesus came to defeat and I hated that it had taken our sweet girl. I did not have to look at her death through rosy lenses but through honest ones. Anger is such a normal part of grief and it has been healing to know that it is okay to be angry that our world is like this. To be angry that my baby died and that other babies die. Experiencing such anger at death and truly knowing that this is not the way things are supposed to be has been a pathway to experiencing the true hope for what things will be like in the new creation and true gratitude for Jesus’ path he took to redeem this fallen world. 

Everything Feels like a Loss

On that Tuesday in the hospital as we were waiting for labor to start, a wonderful grief counselor was helping us prepare for the events and days to come. As she was speaking, I heard the first and (thankfully) only cry of a live baby from down the hall. It wrecked me. I let out such a deep groan and cry as I realized that I would never hear Naomi cry, see her mouth open, her lungs filled with breath. It hit me then -- everything is going to feel like a loss for a while. And it did. Coming home was so good in some ways because we got to be reunited with our sweet boys, and yet it was the start of the journey in which I would have many firsts without the little girl who I had been carrying with me the day before. The week before Naomi died, I had ordered her first batch of clothes for her. I remember Louie helped me take them out of the bags and fold and organize them. Afterwards, he said “Mama, I can hardly wait for my little sister to get here, I just want to pop your belly so she comes out!”. My boys had lost their little sister. I took those clothes that were next to my bed as soon as I got home and put them away. I had milk for her for about a week after she was delivered and it was such a painful physical and emotional reminder of how I wouldn’t get to nurture Naomi anymore. I swapped out my maternity clothes for clothes that would fit my stretched belly. Postpartum is hard enough when you have your baby. Postpartum hormones, body, and healing without your baby is just brutal. 

I didn’t realize how many dreams I had held for Naomi in our family during the time I carried her -- and I had to let go of them all. It felt as if the landscape of our lives had changed and the future felt so scary and depressing. She wouldn’t be here in the summer. She wouldn’t be keeping up with her older brothers who were so excited to meet her. I wouldn’t get to experience so many firsts with my first daughter who made me a girl mom. As time has passed, it has been healing to know that Naomi’s days  -- just like all of ours -- have always been lovingly numbered and known by the Lord. Her earthly life was always meant to be twenty-four sweet weeks with us. However, my heart and mind are still adjusting to this. It is just really hard.

The Comfort

I’ve said often since Naomi’s death that while there is true and great eternal comfort, there just isn’t a lot of earthly comfort in the earliest days of losing someone you love. When Joseph and I think of how the Lord has given us the manna we needed for each day and how he has tangibly comforted us, we both think of our boys, Louie and Jude.

Since becoming a mom, my heart has grown to love how God makes children and why Jesus speaks so highly with them and interacts so lovingly with them. Yet to walk through this kind of grief and be so genuinely comforted by my children has just put me in awe of them and how God loves them and works in their hearts. When Joseph and I came home from the hospital, Jude was napping and so we got to sit down with just Louie and explain in the best way we could what happened to his sister. It was the hardest news I have ever had to share. On the day before we found out she had died, Louie had just been asking about what it would be like when Naomi was ready to come out. We talked about how me and Papa would go to the hospital and he would have a fun time with grandparents and we would bring her home. So when we sat him down to break the news to him, he was really confused. We had just went to the hospital (I had told him we were just making sure everything was okay with his sister) and came home and my belly looked very different. We let him know that something happened to Naomi that doesn’t happen often to small babies, but it did happen to her and we were just so sad and missing her. He tried to explain that it felt like we were surprising him but it felt different because it wasn’t exciting or happy. Together, we verbalized that he was right, this wasn’t a happy surprise but a shock. And a really sad one. Oh, my Louie. His words and questions and comments about Naomi have been some of the most helpful. I love how his four year old mind works and grieving Naomi together has truly shown me that God is present in the hearts of our tiniest ones. 

Before experiencing grief, I was in some ways afraid to talk to Louie about sad things or hard things that happen on a scale such as this. However, walking through this grief journey together and honestly as a family has been one of the most beautiful seasons for our family on many levels. The first few days of being home, I wept most of the days and nights and it was hard to not feel bad about my boys seeing me in this kind of grief even as they were grieving in their own special ways too. On that Saturday morning, we were in the kitchen and I was just feeling so heavy about this season ahead as the mom I am now versus the mom I was before she died. Then, Louie shared a dream with me and Joseph. Before that, he had only shared one dream with me ever before, and it was a scary one. But that morning, he said “Mama, last night I had a dream that you, me and Jude were going to the nature park in our van. We got there and you got out of the car and wouldn’t talk to us or get us out of our carseats. You just left us and walked through the parking lot to the river and went into the middle of it.” At this point, my guilt levels were only escalating because this is not the vision I wanted him to have of me in his dream! But then he said, “But you know what? I got out of my carseat, hopped into the front seat and drove over to you. I used the car’s robot hands to scoop you out of the river and put you in the front seat and I drove us all home! I got us home!” Joseph and I just looked at each other and smiled. This dream that I know was from the Lord was such a way of helping Louie and us to process that grief is okay and we were all going to make it. I know Louie knew that he was helping me and not scared of seeing me like this. It’s true that there is no way past grief, just through it. I have been so pleasantly surprised and comforted at how natural it was for my boys to see me heartbroken after losing Naomi. How else could I have been? They were not bothered by it, instead very natural at comforting me. In the earliest weeks, when I would get hit with a wave of crying, Louie would come up to me and say “You sad about Naomi? You just take your time to be sad”. He would sometimes cry (real and pretend) with me. He would sit with me or near me. Jude would bring me his favorite stuffed animal blanket to wipe my tears with as he said “Nomi, Nomi” and would pretend to cry. Louie has often made sweet pictures for Naomi or brought me flowers from our yard that are now all called “Naomi flowers” by the boys. Louie even made Naomi a pick-axe out of paper because he said it was something he would have done with her if she was here.

On the Saturday after she died, we had an intimate memorial service in our living room with our parents and our pastor friend and his wife. I got to set a beautiful table with candles and flowers and lay out Naomi’s pictures and things. It was beautiful. We did it once the boys were in bed for the night and so beforehand, they were taking a bath. Joseph and I were both sitting there in the bathroom anticipating what the night would look like when Louie asked us if he could wash our feet. We both were stunned. It was the most random and sweetest thing. He just said he wanted to do it because it would feel good to our feet. Sp that night, before our daughter’s funeral, our four year old gently washed our feet with kids’ soap and bath water. Once again, the Lord was giving us physical and tangible comfort from one of His tiniest. 

Two weeks exactly after her death, Joseph and I were having a really hard night sleeping and just replaying the trauma in our heads. It was 2 in the morning and we both just couldn’t rest. It just felt dark in so many ways. In walks Louie and he said “Mama and Papa, are the angels still in our house?” I said “What do you mean?”. He responded “I’ve been seeing angels in our house in my dream. Are they still here?” I don’t have a robust theology of angels or even think of them often, and yet we both were blown away in that moment at the beautiful mystery of how God manifests His own presence and His protection -- often through angels! It was the reminder I needed in that darkness.

There are so, so many ways the Lord has provided. The right therapist to work through the trauma and grief. The right connections with other bereaved moms at just the right moments. Intimate moments where I feel so lonely in my grief and like no one gets it, and then I can so tangibly feel His embrace and whisper “I know your story, I have Naomi, I love you.” I just finished a Bible study with other moms who have lost babies and it was so special and safe to wrestle and hope together. Sometimes I read His Word and end up feeling more confused or doubting. At the end of many days in the early weeks, I would just get to the realization that I either believe this world is broken and sad things happen and it’s all random, or this world is broken and sad things happen and there is a good God working to redeem it all. Often now, I can read through His words and I am thankful for the new lenses I have through which to take in the hope of it all. Promises that didn’t mean anything deep before mean something so much more now. It really is so much hope and heartache in the same breath. 

My Little Girl

In the earliest weeks after Naomi died, I was scared for time to pass because I was afraid I would lose my love or memories of my little girl. I know that is just not true now. She is already ahead of us in the Lord’s eternal presence and I couldn’t love her more. I did not get much time with her and I didn’t meet her alive, and yet I am floored by how deep and real and fierce my love for her is. Her life has impacted me in such mighty and special ways. I am finally okay with being on this lifelong grief journey because grief and love are intertwined. Part of how I know my love for her is the ache I feel. Sometimes the grief is painful, sometimes it comes out in bursts of joy. I have good days and bad days, life feels so much more complicated and yet rich because of Naomi, and my love for her will never change. It’s actually grown deeper as time passes and she is still so fully claimed and loved as our daughter. Forever a part of our earthly family, and already a part of our eternal one. I am so thankful I got to carry my sweet girl and know her in the ways we did, and we long to be with her -- with Him -- in eternity. Somehow redeemed. Somehow restored. Naomi Hope will always, always remind me of the true eternal hope we have.