A little bit of my mother’s story & a very difficult day.
by littlemissfuneral
My mother had a baby that died.
She gave birth to her the day before her own birthday, but for whatever reason, the baby didn’t make it. It was her first child, a little girl.
She told me about it when I was younger and I used to delight in the fact that I had an older sister in Heaven. It was something that I couldn’t comprehend and it’s a loss that I pray I never understand. The baby was buried on top of my mother’s grandparents. Her casket made by an uncle. My father carried her on his lap as the car drove to the cemetery for the burial.
My sister is someone who I don’t think of very often, I’m sad to say. It’s hard to remember someone you’ve never met. Instead, I get little bits and pieces of her from the memories my mother chooses to share with me. And although she’s never said it, I’m positive it’s a loss she still feels very deeply to this day.
Today I had to take the hand print of a little baby who had died in his mother’s womb. This little boy, who was only a few weeks along, and yet I was able to count each and every finger on his little hand. I was able to look upon his little button nose and view his little eyelids gentle closed as if he were merely sleeping.
Today I witnessed death in a way that I wish no one ever has to experience.
And today, I remembered my older sister for the first time in a long time.
I feel such sadness in my heart as I type these words. Sadness for the parents who just a few days ago had so much hope for the future. Sadness for myself, for having to deal with death in instances like this. And sadness for the simple reason that I do not understand why things like this happen.
Not everything in life makes sense.
Some things just suck.
little miss funeral
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I read this just as I was getting ready to go to bed and resisted the urge to comment right away. Before adopting me, my parents had seven mis-carriages/stillbirths. Every once in a while, my mom, now 85, will talk about it and mention that she still mourns those babies from the 1950’s.
Some things just suck. . . Exactly.
When I was six my mother gave birth to a baby who never breathed. I had prayed and prayed for a baby sister. I couldn’t comprehend what “born dead” meant. When my grandparents told me what had happened I ran outside and hid in a flower bed behind shrubs. Sixty-four years later I still mourn my beloved Mary Jo. My mother never saw her, never held her. The only connection my mother ever had to her child was a set of black-and-white pictures of the baby in her casket. This still happens, and more often than people realize. There is an organization, “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” that provides a volunteer professional photographer to come to the hospital and take pictures so that parents have memories of their baby. Thank you for writing this moving essay.
This was very moving. Thank you for sharing.