Heartache and Loss

Heartache and loss are the only words I can think to describe what has happened to an aquaintance of mine, but they seem so inadequate. On Sunday, she lost her 2-month-old baby girl to SIDS. I heard about the whole situation in detail, from this mother discovering the baby had gone on right through the funeral, with some friends last night, a few of whom were personally involved. I must say, it was very difficult for me to hear.

As a mother, it is your worst fear—to lose a child. Just imagining it breaks my heart. Thinking about losing one of my children just tears my heart out of my chest. I can’t speak for fathers, but I know as mothers, our children carry so much of us around with them. I didn’t understand this properly until I had children of my own. They walk, run, and fly (as we do as daughters) and never know they’re pulling us along with them. Losing one of them is the greatest loss there can be.

I can only hold this mother in my heart and try not to let my own fears overwhelm me as I enter this stage of motherhood where that very fear is so much more intense. Of course, I still lay my hand on the back of my DS whenever I check on him at night (which I still do and probably still will when he’s 16). It’s almost like I'm checking to find out if my own heart is still beating.

Even though you probably don’t know her, hold this mother in your hearts and your thoughts and pray in whatever way you pray or reach out and hope that her little two-year-old DS and her family and friends can hold her up until she can grieve and stand on her own again.