It is the season of mums – that glorious coloring of perennial happiness that I plant and nurture each year. These are the plants I prune in the spring when everything else yearns to bloom. Because I know that when late September and early October creep onto my calendar, these will be the plants that greet me with tiny buds and then full blooms.
Rust, purple, red, yellow – I love to fill my garden with these spots of color. Yet even within the enjoyment, I feel a chill of remembrance. Mums were the plants that loving friends brought to me when my babies died – Ryan in 1981 and Rachel in 1983.
Such promise those pregnancies brought. After years of infertility, sharing the joys of friends and family who so easily bore children while I waited with empty arms. It was finally my turn.
Waiting, hoping, praying for the lives of my little ones. Yet both of them – each life ending at 12 weeks.
How does a mother reconcile the image of her own womb becoming a coffin? She cannot. I could not.
Numb, then raw, then screaming out my grief to the God who watched my babies die and did nothing to save them. Was he not supposed to be a Savior?
Why? No answer. It is in the silence of our griefs that faith best grows. Faith – the evidence of things not seen. The babies never held yet somehow carried to heaven where I believed with certainty they were safe and loved.
Friends who provided no answers brought mums to plant, to nurture, to prune back and wait until autumn brought them to life. The hope of this mother that another autumn might bring another child – a living babe I could hold and kiss and sing to.
Again with divine silence came only the belief that somehow God knew a time and way to bring life to my womb just as mums somehow know when it is their time to bloom.
My Caleb – third born yet my only living child – delivered in 1985. Did ever the screams of a newborn sound so sweet?
Still, each year in late September and early October, I seek out another mum plant and gingerly plant it. Some unresolved grief so deep I can no longer weep cries out for a tangible reminder of the babes that were taken. Miscarried babies receive no funeral, no cemetery plot where mothers go to grieve. So I honor my children by planting mums as my personal cemetery token.
I wait for spring to cut them back, then marvel at the first blooms of autumn. And in those orbs of color, I see hope that somewhere in heaven wait two children who want to meet me, throw their arms around me and whisper love words we have longed to share all these years.
©2014 RJ Thesman – “Intermission for Reverend G” – http://amzn.to/1l4oGoo
Blessings to you, dear lady. I don’t know the gender of my sweet lost child. When I get to heaven, I will be waiting for that much loved phrase, “Hey Mom!” For now, we plant “mums”.
Yes, Jenny – and what a wonderful reunion that will be!
Aww RJ. This is beautiful post. What a wonderful way to remember. I have one in Heaven too. Bless you!
Bless you as well, Holly. Heaven is going to be such a joyful place for reunions!
I, too, have a similar story with babies in heaven waiting for me. I’ll have to share that with you sometime. October holds a painful remembrance for me as well. The book, “I’ll Hold You In Heaven” by Jack Hayford was very helpful. Bless your “mother’s” heart.
Bless your heart, Debbie, and thanks for the book title. Sounds like a great resource for all of us mothers who wait to meet our children.
Isn’t it amazing how the Lord draws you to people who have suffered similar losses, not to commiserate, but to comprehend and validate the losses, and the power of Christ to help us grow together towards Him. Thank you for sharing.
Yes, indeed, Peggy. You are so right and proof again that God is all about relationship – with us and with each other.