Sons of Thunder

There are two small identical boxes of ashes hidden in my basement. Birch has never told me where they are. I'm not ready to release them yet…. to say goodbye.

I've been waiting until I had some rich nugget of spiritual wisdom before putting this in words, but I realize now that that may not come for years and I really need to write it. Maybe then I can let them go. These words are all I have to give them. It’s a love letter.

Birch, Juliana and Holt each have their own personal version of this story. This one is just mine.

When we lost our first baby, Anna in 1996 in mid-pregnancy, it was a complete blow. No one we knew had been through something like that. You got pregnant. You had a baby. But in a way, it was almost like going ahead and getting that out of the way. It was our Great Tragedy. We had A Story. And then we could move on. And we did, three beautiful breathtaking God-seeing times.

We'd had all three (live, healthy) babies in different states- Juliana in North Carolina, Holt in Georgia and Carolina in Kentucky. It was all so sing-songy. I’ve always wanted four children and when we moved back to Georgia I remember thinking "but this will mess up the pattern" and later having the superstitious thought, "maybe if we'd moved to South Carolina or Alabama it would have all worked out". Seriously stupid stuff.

In June of last year while we were in Indianapolis for the Southern Baptist Convention, the double lines showed up. I was excited for so many reasons. I want to know the people in my family. All of them. I'm so curious who that final family member will be. I want to meet him or her and hold a newborn of mine just one more time. I want to inhale the top of his head in that fresh-from-God spiritual experience that reminds me of standing at the foot of the ocean. My desire for a baby is a real and physical presence that sits on me and moves with me throughout my day.

And when I went to the doctor mid-pregnancy last September and saw my tiny boy there on the screen, so still, I saw that all my planning was over. Holding him the next day lying in a hospital bed, I knew that I was cramming all the love I would ever be able to give him into one moment in time. This was it. This was the one opportunity I had to be his mother and I knew that it was sacred. If ever I'd felt the Spirit of God, it was in that room in that moment.

When Anna was born, I never held her. I saw her and wept for her and grieved for her and missed her. Her birthday is on my calendar thirteen years later. But I never got to hold her. I never told her that she was beautiful and that I loved her and that I had longed to be her mother.

I didn’t want to miss that again. It was as if I had been preparing to do it right ever since they carried her off. I can say that the time we spent with Crawford after his birth was right and good and beautiful. Birch rocked him. I unwrapped his blanket and looked at all his fingers and toes, so tiny but formed so perfectly…created in the image of God. I took pictures I will never share with anyone other than Birch. We said goodbye.

We prayed for another.

Tests and procedures were ordered by my doctor and we were given the green light. And since actually getting pregnant has never been our problem, by November we were expecting again. My dad pointed out our odds as batting averages. We were statistically (barely) on the positive side.

I felt the outpouring of prayers that had been said for us. I was in the Word every day. I spoke at church. I had been comforted by God through all of this. I was seeking to learn what He was trying to teach me. I deserved a baby at the end of all of this.

But I didn't get one. I got another dead baby boy wrapped in a blue blanket. A cotton one this time. With Crawford, we were given a crocheted blanket that stuck to his unfinished skin. It's hard to remember sometimes which memories are from which dead son.

This one we named Josiah, but Juliana had really wanted a brother named Teddy (from Little Women) and that is how we refer to him when we speak of him, which is only in code or in private. Holt, who was so angry and broken the first time, was never told of this baby. Someday, hopefully when his new baby is clutching his finger, we will tell him. There are some things you can't begin to explain to a six-year-old, things I will never understand myself.

I do know this. My God is sovereign. His grace is enough. I've believed these things all my life. The first statement I can not only say, I can unequivocally believe and live. I know my God is in control of everything. He was not surprised in that ultrasound room like I was. But is His grace enough? That is the beauty of all of this, I guess. We sing it all the time at church, but now I get to also chew and swallow those words.

His grace was enough to get me through September 17 and March 3 and August 3, 1996. His grace was enough to get me through yesterday and it's seen me pretty well all the way up through this morning. I know that there will be days more horrible than I can imagine yet to come in my life. I have to believe that His grace will be enough then also, because if it's not, there is nothing else. So I believe.

Why am I writing this now? It's eating me alive. I'm holding out for doctors to fix whatever's wrong. I'm still waiting for that moment when breaths catch as a baby is ushered into this world and not the world of heaven.

I'm writing these things down to say this: I had sons that lived in me for a time. They were real. Crawford was here. Teddy was here. I'm writing this down so that hopefully one day I can say to my little one, "See! Look how much you were wanted! Look how long we waited and all the things we did just so you would be here with us."

A real baby. No more ghost babies. Please Jesus.

"Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice." Psalm 51:8