Hello, goodbye

Much to my surprise, the girls wanted to look at the small "samples" I picked up from the hospital last week...the only pieces remaining of the brother they were so excited to have and never met. It was barely the beginning of a dream. The pieces weren't recognizable to our eyes, although the girls were sure they saw little hands and feet in the paraffin blocks the hospital sent home with me. To me, it was just a jumble of sad slices of hope.

We buried him today in a silver urn, next to beloved pets in our favorite clearing in the woods. It was cathartic to speak of him for an hour, to dig the hole in the cold, wrap what we had left of him in a hand-sewn flannel cloth I used with all my other babes. Cover him in flowers and earth, a pile of favorite rocks.








I know this is how death was for all of us just a hundred years ago or so. A final bed, handmade usually. A simple grave dug by those we loved while we danced this earth. Flowers, and earth, and a rock cairn to mark the spot in the wood glen on the homestead that was the final resting place for all the bodies we'd loved and lost before. There is a bittersweet simplicity to this type of living and dying. I wish we could all be buried this gracefully.

It was a good goodbye.

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Thank you for the prayers. Amelia has a brain scan under sedation today, so please, as you read this, lift her up. Lift we parents up as well. The results of this scan will herald another season of mourning, or a season of thanksgiving. We pray for the latter.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. ~ Revelation 21:3-5 KJV