A Time To Heal

Owen Michael, lost January 29, 1992, my first lost child

There is a website that I have loved since the day I found it. I don't remember when it was just that I was hurting. Names in the Sand showed me that I was not alone. While I hated that so many other people were going through losses and hurting like I was it was comforting to know that I wasn't the only person out there hurting so badly. It's very hard to help someone understand the love that a parent feels for their child if the other person is not a parent themselves. That love is just something you can describe. Of course once the person becomes a parent they suddenly understand not only that love but equally how hard it is to explain that love.

As hard as it is to describe that love a parent has for their child, it's equally as hard to be able to describe the feeling of losing a child to someone who has never gone through it. I have to be careful here what I say because I don't want to lessen anyone's pain but there are even varying degrees within the loss of pregnancy... at least for me there has been. With my very, very early losses it has been heartbreaking but not pure devastation as much later losses were, particularly William and Joseph. Not to say that I didn't love those who I lost so early as much as I did as the others but I guess the amount of "trauma" that went with those losses just made them harder to go through I suppose. I don't know if it is because I have had others to compare to (which I don't wish on anyone) or the fact that I got pregnant almost immediately, often with the first cycle, after early losses, but those that happened later were just harder for me to handle. Being able to hold the baby in my hands or arms and kiss their tiny heads maybe made it even more difficult to move forward.

I have pictures of my babies who were lost at later dates. I have memories of them... of holding them, of counting their fingers and toes, of kissing their tiny heads. I am so thankful for that. As painful as it was I know I am blessed to have those things. I know for most of my other losses I had nothing, and that is hard.

This past week our family went to the beach for vacation. I've never been able to afford to hire Names in the Sand to write my children's names for me. As beautiful as they are and as much as I have longed to do so, there was just no way. I have lost 12 babies... too many names to write in the sand. There was no way I could choose to write one name and not the others. It didn't feel right to me. So, I never did it. This week I decided to undertake writing all my babies' names in the sand. I had to use the sunrise instead of the sunset since the beach we were on was facing east. There were several days I couldn't write at all because of cloudy weather. Still, after several days I was able to write all 12 babies' names in the sand.

Lily Ann, lost November 21, 2008... Madison's twin

Samuel Lee, lost February 26, 1998... twin to Savannah

Joseph Isaiah, lost March 2, 2010

William Nathaniel, lost December 21, 2010

I am not sharing all the pictures here. I felt like maybe that would be overwhelming. But to share these precious ones will have to represent all of our babies who wait for us in heaven.

It was overwhelming for me to write their names in the sand and to see the sun shining on them. It was comforting until the sea came to wash their names away. In just a moment they were gone, washed away with no sign they had been written there. Only the person who wrote the name knows it once was on the shore. Often that's how it feels when we lose a child. It feels like their names our written on our hearts but washed away so quickly for everyone else around us. It hurts to know that sometimes we are the only ones who think of those little ones wanted and loved so dearly.

I'm glad, that as hard as it was, I was able to write all their names in the sand. I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to see them shining in the sun, the light of God touching them as He touched me at the same time. I miss my babies so much and am still hurting a tremendous amount. I don't talk about it with much of anyone anymore as I know others have moved on and think I should too. It's not that easy to do though. I know that this was a healing moment for me... I got to name outloud all my children. I got to validate their lives in a special way. I got to remember them all at one time. It was a beautiful thing to do.