Passing...

I was on my way back from an out of town trip when I called a friend. The call was the delivery of bad news. A friend of mine in was pregnant with her third child, and she was in labor at twenty one weeks. The doctors told her and her husband that they would not do any life saving measures for babies unless they were twenty four weeks, because the baby will not have lungs developed enough to sustain life (in short that was part of what I was told and some of what I was told later).

Although, unexpectedly as I walked into the ward at the hospital I had a sudden rush of memories and feelings wash over me. Yet, I would not have been anywhere else at that moment. I did what I had learned to do which was to box up my reactions, and set them on the shelf and be where I knew I should be. It was unexpected, because I didn't expect to be washed through and through at that moment with old memories, perhaps it was the weariness I felt in my physical body that had me succumb to the feelings a bit. I don't know, but it was a trigger I didn't expect.

My friend and her husband, delivered a baby boy that same night not long after I left her side. My friend and her husband held and dressed their son and gave him a name. I got a call late the next night letting me know that they would be having a funeral and could I please come. It was one of the hardest funerals and experiences I have been through lately. I saw in the eyes of this father someone who was so in love with this baby even though he had never held it. At the graveside a broken heart inside this man who was asked to lower his child into the cold winter earth. My friend and her husband were grieving equally in their own ways, but this is the first time I have ever seen a man who was so deeply connected to his child and who was the kind of father that I have not seen in such a long time.

I have other family friends in B.C. that I would say are like this couple, but they are much older and have raised more than one generation. It was the first time that I had seen the heart of a man on this earth exhibit the very heart that I know that God has towards us in such deep tenderness. It is not a moment where you wish was connected to seeing something like that, because these things are devastating and no one should have to know this pain.

I stood by the grave with everyone else as my friend and her family, which were as many could come on such short notice. We were a small crowd, but there was many tears by everyone when my friend's husband lowered his own baby into the ground. God's heartbeat is inside this man, and I know that it will be shared with his children now and any that will come later. My friend and her family are a treasure, and even though they sorrow now they will be comforted by God and His angels through this tough time.

I am look at my son again today, and know that he is a miracle. All babies are miracles, and it is a treasure that God gives. I love my treasure, and I realize how much of a miracle of life he really is once again.