IN MEMORIAM

"I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well."—Psalm 139:14

"And so what, if I hadn't been born, and so what, if my brother faded away and said goodbye so soon, as if the world's weak wheel lacked the strength to include him fully in its revolutions and time lacked the time to take in his enthusiasms and affections and grievances, or rushed to rid itself of his incipient will and forced it to cross over to its opposite side, its dark back, transformed into a ghost. There is time for so many other people, time to take in my life, but not his, it's only an example."—page 225, Dark Back of Time by Javier Marías

I just need things to remain quiet and uncomplicated for a while. Simple equals rest. Rest equals peace. Peace is good.

---

Sunday afternoon, the wife and I went to a memorial service at Woodbine Cemetery for babies lost to miscarriage and stillbirth. We went to mourn and grieve the two children of ours that never were. Yes, they did exist in some sense, even though they were never born. Yes, we made them real as we imagined the lives they would have, and the life we would have together as a family. Alas, their lives are only dreams now, memories of times that never will be.

The service was cathartic, touching upon dark places within us. We were not alone. There were other people present who have also suffered pregnancy loss, mostly women, although a couple of men were present with their wives. The weather reflected the sorrow and the loss that was individually and collectively made known upon the faces of those gathered—blustery wind, brooding clouds, damp mist that threatened to become a torrent of rain yet never did.

The names of the lost children were read at one point in the service, a bell rung after each name. The sound of the bell was comforting, a cry to the heavens.

---

We were gathered around a bench that Good Samaritan Hospital installed and dedicated three-and-a-half years ago for those who have experienced pregnancy loss. It is good to have a place to go and reflect and weep, to surrender the dreams of lives never lived. It is good that there are people who envisioned a place for others to mourn, who can see those who are suffering and respond rather than simply passing by.

And, we were gathered here the same weekend that my maternal grandmother died. We mourned not only the loss of two children in less than a year, but the loss of an eighty-year-old matriarch only two days prior. The beginning of life and the end of life, the death of the life not lived and the life well lived, collapsed into one another in this field of gravestones and buried coffins.

---

Sometimes it seems as though this will never end. But it too will pass away. The pain will change. The memories will linger. We will age, and, then, find ourselves as the ones buried under gravestones and grass, with others hopefully gathered and weeping, mourning the lives that we lived.