Joshua –
Our little boy would be in sixth grade, a twelve year old today, the day he came into this world, born but not living. His arrival was anticipated and agonized as we became aware of his death several days before the final delivery of his birth in the very early hours of a November morning. He came quietly into the world, we cried and held each other and we held him. We smiled some too, but mostly we wept. There was beauty and distinction in his tiny face, hands, fingers, toes, ears, nose, eyelids. He was beautiful but still.
There is grief I feel quite often and will be forever, and there is remorse from me as well. I wish I had requested a picture of him as with any other child’s birth, as with other “live” births. I could have asked for that, but didn’t at the time as we were really unable to think or make choices with any clarity. I wish I would have had his young sisters there to see and hold him briefly. I regret that and I am sorry for that decision, that still hurts me even now and it always will, so I hope they can forgive me in that choice of the moment.
I wish he was here today, learning and playing in a sixth grade classroom. Acting silly, teasing and loving his sisters, loving pets, hugging mommy and daddy.
My faith was rocked by that event. My following of a particular Religion and church teaching has never been the same. To me his conception seemed a miracle. There had been miscarriages before, fertility concerns, but two sisters were born and healthy, though with challenging pregnancies and deliveries, one c-section and the other natural but with complications for mother and baby after. It had been four years since the last birth of our baby girl, and no form of birth control all those years. We wanted another child and looked into fertility and other options and then, he was there.
A tiny heartbeat, and he grew, past the scary first weeks, 8th, 9th, 10ththrough 12th weeks, 13 weeks and counting so I felt more at ease. We were going to have another baby, we had another baby, we heard his heartbeat, we saw his image. 15 weeks, 20 weeks, 24 weeks, and then silence. No prayers would change it. No science or religion strong enough to change it. There was no longer a heartbeat, only a tiny body that now had to be delivered premature and stillborn. It was agonizing, torturous, unbelievable. For me it was an emotional nightmare, for my stoic, loving wife and the mother of our child, of our children, it was both an emotional and physical contradiction. Pain physical and emotional, labor and delivery heartbreaking and still in a moment wonderful, yet real in its drama, sorrow and devastation.
We were comforted by family, friends, doctors and nurses, pastors, clergy and Priests. We were comforted in prayer that God would help us through. But there were no answers to why. No spiritual answers, no Religious answers, no scientific answers, no comprehension or understanding then, or now for that matter.
There are many phases of grief the experts will tell you, and there are, and they come and go depending. My faith allowed me to believe that my sons soul had past and was at peace in a better place, in Heaven with others and family that too had died. There was, is, comfort he is there, my belief and faith helps me with that. MY faith, MY beliefs, not those of the Catholic Church which I had chosen to be confirmed into prior to marriage.
Grief played a part in my mounting anger, but the anger was more pointed at Institutions, State Laws and Church rules. The contradictions.
See Insurance for medical covers the pregnant mother, not the living child yet to be born. There are laws to protect the life of the living unborn baby, but not that allows for a life insurance policy of that unborn child as example. You can get life insurance for the mother, but not for the living unborn “life”. Insurance death and burial benefits of a family member don’t count if the person wasn’t born “live”. In fact since it isn’t a “live” birth there is no Birth Certificate, and therefore no Death Certificate. The hospital records show a female patient delivering a stillborn male child, but no birth or death, no name of the child recorded or tally on a census record. Just a hospital statistic. The Insurance benefits I paid for over the years for family death and funeral costs would not be supported by my insurance company because my son was not born alive.
The Catholic Church has Sacraments and rites. The Sacrament of baptism is only performed for a living person. The sick cannot be anointed if they are dead. Last Rites cannot be given if the person has not been baptized. The stillborn child is not recognized into the body of the Church, but “is in Gods hands”. There couldn’t be a Catholic funeral and Mass for my son because he wasn’t born alive, he was born still, his life stopped at 24 weeks, protected by laws to protect anyone from taking his life within a pregnant mother, but a natural unexplainable death before birth and he’s nobody in eyes of State Laws, Insurance Companies and Church Rules. So we decided to have his body cremated (against Catholic teaching, but they didn’t officially recognize him anyway), and we hold his cremated ashes dear and cherished in our own safe vessel and await the passing of mother or father to be buried along-side one of us, to be present at a funeral recognizing both parent and child.
I love my son and cherish his short life and time with us, unborn, and I am happy I saw him and held him. I have faith and believe in one God, a universal spirit. I believe in Jesus, and some teachings of Christianity, I also believe an omnipresent God shares a Spirit in many, many ways and through many means of teaching, different stories, different peoples and different events. I believe in Angels and Spirits, I believe the Souls and Energy of all life is part of the omnipresent. I find comfort in various Religious images, icons, monuments, statues, writings, and practices, not just Christian, but from all of them. I believe in connecting with God though intentions, meditation, prayer, and just being open to enlightenment. I believe in the universal spirit and good will of all people. I believe it is all in Gods hands, within Gods universal structure, but I think that we make choices and do things as humans, that are not “Gods will”. I believe my relationship to my God in my way manifests the love and good in me to empathize and care for humanity and all things in this world. I believe that firm Religious dogmas, Politics and power of separate Religious Institutions and those Leaders of Church and State are often ironically at odds with their Gods intentions and the natural balance of Gods spirit. I still go into a church and attend Mass, as I feel Gods presence there, me and My God, but I don’t really listen to the Priest, I don’t hear the Catholic Church, I go to feel the presence of God and to have my own connection to him, and to share a greeting of peace to others. I’ll light a candle, I’ll kneel and pray and share an intention, I’ll give thanks to my God, to him, not to the Church or it’s politics.
I believe my sons Soul and Spirit contributes to help balance and provide positive, loving, peaceful energy in his very, very small way. I believe I must live up to his contribution, live up to his potential, live up to his expectation of me, small as he was in that still body, he is now a part of Life as large as the universe, and that is immensely more enormous in Spirit and will take my lifetime to strive to achieve daily.
I hope in some small way this heartfelt and personal sharing benefits you, that it has even a small impact in your life, that it may stir an emotion and an honest moment of your own, with your own beliefs. We all need to check into our own Spirit and deep into our Souls, time and again.
Love and peace be with you, blessing of the Spirit be upon you, go in peace and serve the world every small step of your way as best you can, always first for the good of others, and you too will find peace along that path.
O X O
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