Empty Pages

Stillbirth has a way of staying with you forever. Even when you're certain you've cried every tear there was, even when you're "over it" for good and you feel like it can't possibly reach you anymore, it can. I remember thinking all those years ago that the hardest part of stillbirth was the surviving--the living afterward. Its not something you should survive, I said to myself. The cruelty of it is that you do. And life goes on. New babies come and you think of her less and less with each passing year.

And then one day, you spot a dusty book on the top shelf, pull it down, and find the pain is still there, right where you left it. Mother's Memories For My Daughter, the book says. Inside the front cover is a letter, written in your own handwriting on loose leaf paper. July 4, 1999. "To my child==Today I found out I'm carrying you!" And the innocent excitement breaks your heart. You flip through the first pages of the book, where you'd carefully written your life story for her and diagrammed her family tree, and on to the part where her story was to be written. "The day of your birth, first smile, first steps, first words, favorite lullibies, songs you liked to sing..." And you can't stand it any longer. "Things we enjoyed doing together" is too much. So you hurl the awful thing into the trash and fall to your knees. And you pray the only words that come to mind.

Lord, please don't leave my baby girl with empty pages. She deserves so much more. Please fill them for her, Jesus. Better yet, tell her we'll fill them together when I get there. Tell her Mommy misses her and we're going to make lots of memories together soon, more than we ever could have here. All the books in the world can't hold the fun we'll have together. But Lord, for tonight, please just hold her, give her my love, and sing her a lullaby for me. Hold my aching heart in your hands too, and bridge the gap between us as only you can. Whisper to me your comfort, and tell me this story won't end with empty pages.