To be Held

 For I, the LORD your God, will hold your right hand, Saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you. Isaiah 41:13 (NKJV)

My oldest son, Richard, the one who seemed so quiet about our loss, finally had a break through a couple nights ago. He is a very sweet compassionate and sensitive child, so when his reaction to the loss of the baby was minimal, I was concerned.

I had heard him crying and went into his room. When I asked what was wrong he said that he did not want to tell me because he did not want to make me cry. Of course, no mom feels comfortable with that response, so I pressed further. Finally he told me he was upset about the baby. I was taken back because this was the first time he ever spoke openly with me about it. When I asked him what caused him to start thinking about the baby, he said that it was his bunk bed. His bunk bed?

He had been laying in his bed, trying to fall asleep. He looked up at the empty top bunk and realized that it will always be empty because the baby will never be here to fill it. He explained to me how scared he was that the baby would never know him. The baby would never know what a good brother he would have been and how much he would have loved him or her.

 I explained to him that, of course, the baby will know him one day when he gets to Heaven ( I inserted that he would be like 150 years old before he went to heaven as I didn't want to give him anything else to worry about). He looked at me and said, "No mom, the baby will never know the real me, the me I am now. We will never play chase or football together".

His tears were rolling down his cheeks and he was holding on to me tightly. The truth is that he was right.  The baby would not know him now and would not know the brother his is in this life. There was nothing could do to sugar coat his pain. This was the first time he had really let us know how sad he truly was and it was finally breaking through after six months. He needed to feel the sadness he he been keeping inside. That moment was his to begin his own healing process. All that I could do was hold him.

That night I thought to myself, this ache I felt for my son that night, having to watch him cry and knowing how badly his heart was hurting, was what God experiences when I am hurting. It is how He felt for me, his child, when I lay sobbing in my bed until I was too exhausted to cry any longer and my heart hurt so badly I felt it through my whole body. It was my moment to work through so that I could begin the healing process and all He could do, was hold me.