I can’t remember her face. It’s strange because I remember so many things from that time in sharp detail and yet the most important thing – her – eludes me. As she died so quickly, I was basically the only person on earth who really knew her. I am her mother, for pity’s sake. And yet I cannot picture her tiny, still face even now. The pieces are there – my sister commenting on her long eyelashes, my mother holding out a little hand to point out the perfect fingernails, my dad telling me she has my chin – but when I try to put them together it is a flurry of tiny white snowflakes, scattered. 1,000 paper cranes already flying away from me. A doll in a pink, smocked dress.
Perhaps it is God’s way of protecting me from missing her too much. Or perhaps it is God’s way of telling me I should have taken those scrapbooking classes when I had that coupon for 50% at Archiver’s. Or – and I think this may be it – it is God’s way of telling me that some things are better when you listen instead of look. You may have heard that silence is empty but I can tell you an eternity is spoken in the absence of a baby’s cry.
I found myself listening to the silence a lot. The silence came in the comforting presence of my long-dead grandmother who had also lost a child, the silence lovingly touching my hair, whisper light. Then the silence told me to breathe. Don’t forget. Don’t remember. Just breathe. I listened and listened and listened until eventually I found myself listening to my friend LuAn. She was the leader of the women’s group at my church and I’d thought she’d come to offer me more words I couldn’t hear because I didn’t want to be comforted, not yet. She had not. She’d come to talk to me about Abby*.
I knew Abby. We’d been pregnant together. Not only that but we’d both been told our babies had a one-in-a-million chance of survival. I was carrying my daughter Faith, who had Turner’s Syndrome. She was carrying identical twin boys who had the incurable twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. We prayed together. Puked together. Cried together. Laughed together. But she had been silent ever since my baby had been born and died. I didn’t get my miracle. She couldn’t even come to the funeral because she was on bed rest, trying not to jeopardize her miracle. And now she was at her most critical, and most helpless, stage of the pregnancy. Total, absolute bed rest. I knew all this.
“I wouldn’t normally ask something like this,” LuAn started and before she finished the silence filled with all the things we don’t normally do but have to make an exception for when a baby dies. Normal was gone. Faith was gone. But Abby’s twins were still very much alive and Abby needed help. Yet how could she even ask it? How do you ask a mother who just lost her baby to care for a pregnant woman who may or may not lose hers?
I said yes, of course. I was on maternity leave. I had nothing but time and the silence of a nursery I refused to take down. Besides, what was I going to do? Sit at home and keep leaking bodily fluids on things? (Oh the things they don’t tell you about pregnancy! Your body’s been storing up 9 months worth of goo and it all has to come out somewhere. There’s a reason the hospital gives you maxi-pads the size of a snowboard.)
That first day was awkward. My job involved driving Abby to her doctor’s appointments, cooking, cleaning and making sure she downed these massive protein shakes every few hours (which she would then promptly throw up and then I’d retch because I’m a sympathetic puker and then we’d laugh which would make her throw up again, poor girl). It didn’t take long before our friendship was rekindled.
One morning I realized that for the first time in a very very long time, I had woken up excited. I was excited to go see Abby so we could talk about our ex-boyfriends and watch soap operas and poke her babies to make her stomach do that weird alien thing it did when the babies separated.
But I didn’t fully realize the extent of my attachment to Abby and her boys until one day when we got The Call. My husband, tired of coming home to an empty house, had insisted we take a vacation together several hours away. Of course it was during my one time off that her babies would come. I panicked. “Are the babies alive? Is Abby alive?!” I demanded, unable to banish the worst-case scenarios after having lived one. “I have to get there before they die!!” I made my husband rush me to the hospital. “You know Charlotte,” he said, “most babies live.” But I didn’t know! I didn’t!
And then there they were: two perfect, beautiful, alive, baby boys. Just 2 pounds each.
“Do you want to hold them?” Abby asked me, painfully hunched over her emergency C-section wound. I nodded, the silence speaking for me. “You can go into the NICU. I put you on the list. It’s supposed to be only immediate family but I told them you are my sister.” She smiled as the tears ran down both our faces.
As I held one of her babies, my heart bursting with amazement and love, I realized: she had got her miracle. And, after all, so did I. As Dieter Uchtdorf, a leader in my LDS faith, said recently, “By becoming the answer to someone’s prayer, we often find the answer to our own.” I may not remember Faith’s face anymore but I know her voice every time I hear it in the silence. It is the voice of hope.
Have you ever helped someone else and found that in the end it helped you even more? Anyone else immediately jump to the worst-case scenario?
Want a chance to be the answer to someone else’s prayer? Susan, fitblogger, fellow calendar babe and writer of The Great Balancing Act, was recently diagnosed with lymphoma. She’s fit, healthy and only 25. The fitblogging community is rallying around her with Janetha of Meals and Moves organizing an auction and online benefit to help pay for Susan’s medical costs. The online auction will be Monday July 25th – all the details are here – with over 100 great items from all the fitbloggers you know and love. I’m donating a signed copy of my book. Hope to see you there!
*Name has been changed
thanks once again, Char, for an amazing post. I love Elder Uchtdorf so much, he’s such a great man and leader.
What a wonderful post! Thanks for sharing, that.
Love reading your blog and am always touched by the stories you share. Just want to point out you may want to double check you name changes, I think you’re friend’s name is still in there once.
WOW. You really are a wonderful writer. Such an amazing post and a great lead in to the fundraiser. And a great lesson. Thank you in so many ways!
Charlotte…what a post. Thank you for your thoughts, your amazing gift with words, for mentioning Susan, and for sharing so openly in all your posts! xoxo
What a beautifully written post. I’m moved by your story and Susan’s.
beautiful post charlotte.
I too am so moved by the power of our tribe to UNITE on a moments notice and move mountain.
That is a beautiful title and so true!!
What a sweet lovely post! It speaks so much about who you are. And, even though we all love your flips and handless headstands, I personally love that you are a good person–which is the primary reason why I read your blog.
Nobody knows what the next person is going through. We just can’t know. So it is super important to be kind to others–just knowing the fact that life has its sorrows, but we can make people feel a little better.
And I was just saying to a gym employee today, that we should never judge another person’s fitness level meanly because, very likely, if they are over 40, because they are recuperating from some form of surgery or illness. I know quite a few gym buddies who had surgery this year and need encouragement at the gym. There are so many reasons to be kind.
🙂 Marion
This is incredibly beautiful and inspirational. Thank you for sharing your story of wisdom and courage. I was very touched and I will carry your words for a long time, striving to be as brave a woman as you are, Charlotte.
ugh, I love (and hate) when your posts bring tears to my eyes! Such an amazing story. I feel like, for me, I have found that many friends come into my life, and through their friendship, I have found answers to my prayers, and vice versa…a dear friend of mine came into my life not long ago, and after first meeting, we found out that I HAVE struggled, and she is just now struggling with an eating disorder…I have been able to be there for her in the beginning when I had no one during that time. It helped me in my own recovery just by being there for her in hers…
Wow–you nearly brought me to tears! At work!!! Such a beautiful story, and timely. My friend recently gave birth to a stillborn (their very first child) and it has been so hard to know how to help.
I LOVE President Uchtdorf. He’s got such a wonderful way of speaking, and he is so genuine. What a great man.
This is truely an absolutely beautiful post. So well written and such a testimony to the power of God and the power of friendship. Thanks for sharing!
Wow, how beautiful!
I am, as you know, a worst-case-scenario thinker, too. But I’m working on it.
G-d works in mysterious ways, and we cannot always see the reason for things, but they become clear eventually.
Thank you so much for sharing this and bringing the spirit into my day.
That was amazing. And the quote is going up on my wallpaper.
For worst-case scenarios, I’m the one who has everyone dead in a ditch when people are running late. My long-suffering husband knows that if he forgets to call when he’s running late (forgetting is RARE, but his work can get loony at times), I’m halfway to the fetal position by the time he finally gets home.
The man is a saint, truly.
Beautiful post.
Living in Canada I just take for granted that medical care is provided for. I couldn’t imagine being diagnosed with cancer and not be sure how I could pay for the treatment. It’s a wonderful think the fit blogging community is doing.
Beautiful Charlotte.
I have no words.
I read about Susan on another blog but did not know about the auction. Charlotte – such a beautiful & moving post. Thank you!
I really wanted to respond to this… but wasn’t sure how. I’ve come back to it and still do not know what to say other than thank you.
What a truly touching post. I’d read the story of your daughter Faith before, but reading it again brought tears and ache in my heart for you. Thank you for sharing and summing it up in such a meaningful way. 🙂
Oh my goodness…This was such a beautiful, heart moving post that Im now about to share with a whole bunch of other people. Thank you soo much for sharing this…Wow!!!
Beautiful Charlotte.
Crying over my morning coffee. Thanks for sharing this. Good way to start my day.
You move me, Charlotte. For real. Thank you.
Tear jerker! Eek. But lovely beyond words.
I believe that in whatever karmic way, any time you do something wonderful for someone else, it somehow enriches you, whether or not you know it at the time.
And thank you for promoting the auction for Susan- and for donating your autographed book. She is beyond grateful for all that everyone’s doing.
This is seriously amazing Charlotte. I’ve been through some crap in my day, but I seriously can’t imagine what losing a child could be like. And then having the strength to support somebody else entirely right after the fact. Amazing.
Thank you for sharing this.
A close friend appears to be in the last few weeks or months of his life. He’s been a cancer survivor in the past, but not this time. He made the choice months ago not to pursue further treatment, and we and his wife and adult children respect that. It is still heart wrenching to see everything that is happening, and to feel like there’s nothing I can do to really improve the situation.
I pray for Susan that she can beat this cancer, and can turn around and be an answer to someone else’s prayer.
That was so beautiful Charlotte. Thank you for sharing a story that really makes you think.
I cry every time I read one of these posts, but I think it’s helpful in a way. Thank you, Charlotte.
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As I have mentioned before, our youngest was stillborn. One of my friends was pregnant with twins at the time. I went over to her house to help her, talk to her. Amazingly, she let me talk about Kelli while she was still pregnant. She and her husband invited me to the births of the babies and of course I was so there. Right after both babies were born (naturally, no section!), I went into the bathroom and sobbed with relief for my friends and with missing my baby so much. After they all went home, my daughter Hannah and I went to their house at least once a week to hold babies. They filled my arms that still ached. It was a blessing to help my friend, but maybe she helped me even more.
It took me years of going to births to get over the fear that something would happen to the baby about to be born. And it took years for Hannah, who was 5 at the time of Kelli’s death, to not ask me, “Is the baby alive???” the moment I walked in the door. Only after knowing that did she ask me if the baby was a boy or a girl.
Thanks for posting bits and pieces about your Faith!