Because of my work with the HER Foundation, I know a lot of women across North America I have never met in real life, and I "know" their babies and children.
One of those women, the brave and tenacious C., lost her two-month-old daughter today.
L. was diagnosed in utero with a serious heart condition. C., ill with hyperemesis gravidarum, continued to fight for her baby, planning for delivery in a children's hospital where doctors operated on L.'s tiny heart right away.
After multiple surgeries, L. was transferred to her home town children's hospital, then released and sent home with her overjoyed family. She was doing well, growing, blooming. She was beautiful.
She was readmitted a few days ago, and died suddenly today.
I have no words for how sorry I am, and for how utterly devastating this must be for C. and her family. How do we understand the death of an innocent child?
The thing I am struggling with the most tonight is this: My God, don't HGers give enough? After such horrific, sometimes life-threatening, isolating and frightening pregnancies, don't all of my HG sisters deserve to go home with a healthy baby? A live baby? A baby who learns to crawl and walk and dance and sing?
The author Anne Rice, after her reconversion to Catholicism from atheism, was once asked by an interviewer if her husband's death from cancer made her wonder why God took him. She shrugged and said, "I never look at it that way. I think God was just as sorry it happened as I was, and he cried along with me."
Her thought gives me some small comfort tonight. Until I think of my unmet friend and her enormous grief.
I know life isn't fair, I know that. But sometimes its cruelty is breathtaking.
2 comments:
Very well put. I have been struggling with this loss a great deal too. Being a member of the HER foundation, we come to find we are surrounded by suffering, yet in the end we pray that at least the reward will be worth the price paid. I can never wrap my mind around the loss of a child. Yet this is something mothers suffer around the world every day. The injustice of such a thing is beyond my ability to understand and my heart breaks for them utterly.
Cindy,
Life is so fragile and your post reminds us all that we must treasure every moment we have with others. My heart breaks for this lady and her family, and she's in my thoughts and prayers.
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