There are no words for the little moments that can only be lived

As the day approached when we knew we would lose Nathanael, some anonymous saint left us a card with the words,

“Dear Steve, Sarah and family,

We know that there are no words that can be said to ease your pain.  But cherish these weeks.  You are this baby’s mother and father.  As you stroke your tummy, you stroke him or her as only a mother can.  When you read to Ethan at night you read to this baby.  As you sing and pray you do it with this baby.  And when you hold each other, you cuddle this baby as only a mother and father can.  These are cherished moments...”

This card was such a gift to us at the time, because we had not conceived the thought that we could be so present with our baby, Nathanael.

Those little moments came and went, and we certainly had no regrets with how we spent our time, even if the weeks and the days that lead up to Nathanael being stillborn were an absolute frenetic blur.

I still like to write about those days.  I never want to lose connection with that time.  In many ways, time is frozen from that time, even though I cannot understand it, and would prefer it a different way.  Still, it is a possession; something we have not lost amid all the loss.

Little moments can only be lived, and words don’t add much at all, though we are forgiven for adding them on, whilst hoping they are not given as platitudes carelessly.

Grief is a portal into eternity where the time of loss is frozen like a capsule forever etched someplace gone.

It isn’t supposed to be returned to us, not in this lifetime, yet if we are brave enough to believe, perhaps it will be returned to us when we have arrived ultimately on eternity’s celestial shore.