After reading this article in Homeschooling Today, Mary Simon asked to have it available to share.
I love to say her name, feeling the word on my tongue and hearing the sound. “Violet.”
Moving into the fifth month of pregnancy, I was awaiting the butterfly kicks I should feel any day. But the movements didn’t come. The doctor confirmed my fears. Our baby had died.
The sad news caught our children completely by surprise. Feeling as though we were drowning in grief, we gathered in the family room and cried. The children named the baby Trust because we were learning to trust God when we didn’t understand.
An Early Birth
Another woman who lost a baby at sixteen weeks asked about my plans for the baby’s arrival. That was when our family stopped waiting for a miscarriage and began preparation for an early birth.
My eight-year-old son wanted to build a casket as his gift to our baby. He spent a Saturday afternoon crafting a piece of California redwood into a small casket barely larger than a bread pan. To line the miniature box, Leilani (fourteen) stitched a doll-sized blanket from a piece of my wedding dress. Five-year-old Estee cut yellow-and-white-checked cotton to swaddle the baby. Holly (eleven) collected dried petals from the many floral arrangements friends had sent. AmyRose (sixteen) helped me gather birth supplies.
Grieving Differently
Each family member dealt with his or her grief differently. My husband was emotionally distant. Leilani and Estee cried often. Holly was angry with God. AmyRose and I put one foot in front of the other, doing what each day required. Praying daily for this baby, Josiah had planned to share with this new sibling his favorite things, including locations of the birds’ nests, the best fishing spots, and his tree fort in the woods. Josiah was a loose end. I explained that having taken an early journey home, this tiny child now was waiting Josiah’s future arrival in eternity and how vital it was that he keep the faith.
Information about how long a mother’s body takes to miscarry naturally when a baby dies in utero is sketchy, but indications are between six weeks to three months. Three-and-a-half months after the baby died, I was still pregnant. After several opinions, we opted for the mildest form of intervention to induce labor. I wanted to birth my baby.
After I carried her seven months, on April 30, Violet Trust was born peacefully and miraculously at home. For each of us, receiving her into our family was an unparalleled wonder akin to opening our most precious Christmas gift. We hadn’t known she was a girl until we held her. The size of my hand, her body was perfect and lovely. The only part missing was life.
Each of our girls has a flower in her name, and Violet was the unanimous choice, especially appropriate because in her perfect petiteness she resembled the violets in full bloom at her birth.
We buried Violet Trust on May 1. We took pictures of our tiny daughter; my favorite is the photo of her next to my wedding ring. We tenderly swaddled her in the cloth Estee prepared and wrapped her in Leilani’s white satin blanket. After we placed her in the casket Josiah had made, the box was only half-full. Estee and three-year-old Hannah brought out a basket of gifts they had made for the coming baby. Lovingly created yarn dolls, bead necklaces, and carefully colored pictures filled the wooden box to the brim. Holly added dried flower petals. Violet was nestled in a box filled with gifts of love from her family and friends.
Nothing was left to do but nail the top on the casket. The hammer’s ringing sounded devastatingly final. We read aloud poems and Scriptures friends sent to encourage our hearts. We prayed and sang songs.
Saying Good-bye
Everything within me protested as we laid Violet in her final resting place. I didn’t want my baby to be cold, wet, or alone.
On a homemade cross painted white, the children wrote Violet Trust Wells. Over her grave we planted a Rose of Sharon and a multitude of purple and white wood violets. Each of us stops by that special spot often and wonders . . .
Friends did not know what to say to ease our pain. There was nothing to say. Yet we were comforted that they cared. We are thankful for the time we had with Violet. Heaven is more precious because we have an investment there.
On Violet’s one-year birthday, I walked to her grave with her brand new baby sister in my arms. I told Lilyanna Faith that she has an older sister named Violet Trust.
Violet’s birth announcement had these words:
We didn’t get to run with you, but you beat us to heaven.
We didn’t get to teach you, but you taught us to trust.
We didn’t get to hear you, but you taught us to listen.
We didn’t get to bathe you, but you washed us with tears.
We didn’t get to comb your hair, but your beauty is beyond expectation.
We didn’t get to change your diaper, but you forever changed our hearts.
We didn’t get to sit on our porch together, but we see your place of rest.
We didn’t get to ride the horse with you, but you are now with the Creator of all.
We didn’t get to play music with you, but today you hear the heavenly choir.
We didn’t get to raise you, but you raised our heads towards Him whom we can trust.
We love you, Violet Trust.
What Do I Say?
When someone loses a loved one, what do I say? How can I be the hands of Jesus to someone suffering loss?
In times of deep grief, I have found that hope is more important than advice. Job said it this way, “Is my strength the strength of stones, Or is my flesh bronze? Is it that my help is not within me,
And that deliverance is driven from me? For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend; So that he does not forsake the fear of the Almighty” (Job 6:12–14 NASB). During those dark hours, Jesus calls us not to be experts but to come alongside and provide encouragement.
“A friend sent flowers on that first sad Mother’s Day after my mom died,” my Sunday school teacher said. “I felt loved and understood.”
Thankfully, I don’t have to have my life together to help another. My sister’s children died in an auto accident. “Some people felt awkward when they saw me and turned away,” she shared. “I appreciated those who hugged me and said, ‘I’m praying for you.’”
Trusting God when we least understand is faith in action. Gentle comfort comes from those who put their arms around hurting people and say, “I don’t understand either. But I love you and I am here to go through this with you.” Romans 8:38–39 (NIV) promises, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
After a long illness, a coworker’s husband died. She recalled, “I was comforted by those who walked with me in the church parking lot, who sat with me so I wouldn’t be alone in my regular pew, and who invited me to lunch on an otherwise lonely weekend afternoon.”
Time doesn’t heal the wounds of someone who had to say good-bye to a loved one. Time merely teaches us to live with that oversized, gaping hole in our life and heart. We can walk beside another through the journey of grief. Ecclesiastes 4:10 (NIV) says, “If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”
The first year after the loss of someone special is especially difficult. Holidays mercilessly remind one that life has forever changed. Comfort your grieving friend with flowers, a note, or a memorial gift in their loved one’s name on Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s or Father’s Day, birthdays, wedding anniversaries, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. Soothe the sorrow of the anniversary date that marks the loss with a phone call to say, “I’m remembering you today.”
The best consolation often comes from one who has been there. In God’s economy, our sufferings are not wasted. II Corinthians 1:3–4 (NIV) illustrates, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
My grandma placed a memorial rose at the front of the church the week after she buried her husband. After the service, a woman widowed the year before asked what she would do now.
“Go home, I guess,” Grandma answered.
“Let’s get a beer,” the widow teased.
The absurd idea made Grandma laugh for the first time in months. Actually, the two women went out for a milkshake because that widow remembered how unfair life felt going home alone the first Sunday after her own husband died.
After his wife died, my neighbor felt completely lost. She had done the shopping. Just the variety in the detergent aisle was daunting. Widowed several years earlier, his friend remembered how terrified he had been navigating his way around the grocery aisles without his own wife after she passed away. He offered to take my neighbor on his first trip to the market.
Called to mirror Jesus Christ by being His hands to a hurting world, we help others by seeing and empathizing with their pain. God consoles us so we can be God’s hands of compassion to others.
Originally published in Homeschooling Today® magazine—Fall 2011. Used by permission.
That was a beautiful reminder of how God uses the painful things in life to draw us closer to Him and to others who need encouragement. Even though you lived far away from us, I remember the event of this miscarriage (or rather still birth) very well. I lost a baby at the same time and was between 16 – 18 weeks along. I didn’t have the opportunity to meet him or her since I hemorrhaged so severely that I never saw my baby. I do remember feeling so sad that I never got to see or hold him in my arms.
Thank you for sharing your story and for the encouragement to come alongside others in their grief. Sometimes we forget how important it is to give a hug or a kind word to those who are hurting. To offer simple invites to coffee, milkshakes or even a trip to the grocery store.
You always hold a tender place in my heart. God bless you!
What a poignant remembrance, Jocelyn. I read about a woman years ago whose husband was away. With her new baby she was living in a foreign culture where she did not know their language nor did they know hers. When her baby became deathly ill, the women in the community took turns staying with the mother. She was never alone during her terrible loss and grief. My friend Barb received the same gift from her church when her children were in a car crash that took their lives. Whether quiet or helping her make decisions, these compassionate companions gave the comforting gift of presence. Later in town, neighbors turned away from her. “I understand their discomfort,” Barb said. “But it hurt. I wish they would just say ‘I’ve been thinking of you.’”
Peggy Sue this is a beautiful expression of a mother’s love and a family’s devotion. I rarely use Face Book, so I would appreciate your email.
Marvin, knowing how you cared for your wife when she was ill, and the extraordinary way you carried on your daughter’s dream is the rich stuff of love and family. Well done.