I’ve just purchased a box on Etsy. It’s a simple box – wooden, handmade, cedar- with a sliding lid. Something you might assume would store a few keepsakes or perhaps a gift for a loved one.
This box is different. It’s going to serve as the final resting place for our sixth child.
My wife and I have three children in our home – eight, six, and three – whom we love beyond comparison, save for the special bond of husband and wife. Daily life is a sort of organized chaos as we all seek to care for one another and spend our days learning to give more than we take. We work hard, laugh harder, and occasionally cry over something (hopefully) worth shedding tears over.
Every day is a gift.
This current chapter of life has found us, more often than not, spending our days passing one another with a smile in the midst of our home.
“Dad, look at what I just made!”
“Mom, do you SEE how big that squirrel is?!”
“Kiddos, hey, do you know how much we love you?”
This sounds just as idillic as it really is; we’ve been blessed with a mixture of God’s kindness and the sort of right-place-right-time-ness that many homes only dream of having. Each day ends with me quietly doing the dishes, wondering just how I ought to use these incredible gifts we’ve been given, all the while smiling at the baby monitor, AKA my favorite streaming video channel.
Not to say that we haven’t had our share of downers, in case you’re keeping score. The road to three beautiful children has also been marked by three miscarriages.
Eleos was seven weeks old when we learned that he or she had passed. Shelah was closer to eleven weeks, far enough along that I have the image of his or her ultrasound burned into my memory. Our third lost child, yet unnamed at the writing of this post, will be making his or her journey from womb to grave at the approximate age of nineteen weeks, though the scans show development ending a few weeks prior.
All six lives of our children are equally precious, just as the lives that you and I live have equal meaning and worth. It doesn’t matter how old you are: once life is present, it holds an eternal value. The horror of early miscarriages is that you don’t have anything tangible to show for the passing of that life, beyond perhaps a few images of pregnancy tests or similar themes.
It would be (easy? understandable?) to assume that these untold tales of lives lost don’t leave the same mark as ones playing out for years in front of your eyes…but that would be a lie.
Every life is precious. Every life has value. Every life deserves dignity.
Back to the box that I just purchased on Etsy. This simple cube made of cedar is what we’ll use to lay our sixth child to rest. Unlike his or her two unborn siblings who passed with less recognizable forms, we fully intend to honor his or her frail frame with a proper burial.
This moment in time for our family of five is a somber one. But just like each breath we take is out of our control, so do the daily joys flow in: flowers from friends, meals from church members, and notes of encouragement from family far and near – just to name a few.
Our three children lost to time and providence have etched permanent marks on our hearts. The three children I watch on the baby monitor are now even more precious to me, ever more deserving of my very best attention in the days ahead. My wonderful wife has never been so beautiful, so majestic, so strong.
This family is hurting, yes, but we are learning to love one another all the more.
Every day is a gift. I hope you use yours well.