Clara Hinton - Silent Grief: Miscarriage - Child Loss: Finding Your Way Through the Darkness

Silent

Grief

by

Clara Hinton

First printing: February 1998

Fifth printing: August 2008

Copyright 1997 by New Leaf Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews. For information write:

New Leaf Press, P.O. Box 726, Green Forest, AR 72638.

ISBN-13: 978-0-89221-371-9

ISBN-10: 0-89221-371-X

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 97-75892

Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon

Printed in the United States of America

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Dedication:

For every parent who has entered

through the gates of child loss.

Acknowledgments

My heartfelt thanks to the many doctors, nurses, ministers, and other caring professionals who have helped me put this book into a practical perspective. A most special thanks to each and every parent who has allowed me to enter into that very private corner of the heart where so many tears have been shed. A very grateful thanks to my editor, Jim Fletcher, for working with me from beginning to end. And most of all thank you to my family for continually encouraging me to see this book through to completion.

A very special thanks to Mandy for her unending patience working with me at the computer.

Above all else, I thank God for granting me this most blessed privilege of sharing the thoughts contained in this book with you.

Part 1 In the Valley

Chapter 1

Im Sorry

I am weary with my sighing; every night I make my bed swim, I dissolve my couch with tears. My eye has wasted away with grief (Ps. 6:6-7).

Im sorry. Two very small, very used words. But, oh, the meaning those words can hold! Those two words, Im sorry, can change the course of a persons life forever, especially when connected to the loss of a child. Your child.

Im sorry can come very early, even before the actual birth of a child, in the form of a miscarriage. Those words can ring in the ears of parents at birth when the beautiful baby they expected to take home with them has no life. Stillborn. Im sorry. Those words can echo in a parents heart when a healthy child so full of beauty and life, takes a nap, never to wake again. The stealthy robber of young life, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, takes your baby. Im sorry can come later in life when a child has a totally unexpected accident, an accidental poison overdose, a fall into the swimming pool, or a disease that so fiercely attacks and just refuses to let go. Im sorry. Two words we very rarely like to hear. Two words we never want to hear when they are about our child.

Sometimes the bearer of the news is gentle; sometimes very abrupt. It really doesnt matter. The heart is still pierced and left with a gaping hole. A hole that hurts like nothing else in this world. There is no easy way to hear those words or gentle way to live with them. Not now, anyway.

In talking with many, many parents, I have found that the hardships of life itself can be brutally cruel. The stories that have been shared from each one who has suffered child loss have been heart-wrenching. Just hearing the words that a child has died brings most of us to our knees in tears. Children are not supposed to die. Especially not now. Not our children.

My own heart has been torn at several different times, and each time I heard those words, Im sorry, I wanted to run away. Scream. Hit something. Do anything to make the hurt go away. I wanted to go to bed for a long, long time and wake up to find out that it was only a bad dream. But, the bad dreams never go away. Never totally.

One of the saddest stories told to me was from a young lady that I didnt even know. She was working as a sales clerk at a store, watching me try to school shop with three of my very excited little ones. She began making small talk about how patient I was with the children. They seemed to be all over that store, and into just about everything. After exchanging the usual talk about school shopping, I asked the question, Do you have any children? Yes, she said. And then the tears began to flow. She gave birth to a beautiful, perfect son 12 years ago, and all of life was wonderful. She bathed him one evening, rocked him to sleep as usual, and he slept through his night feeding. She awoke from habit, and peeped into the nursery. All looked well, so she enjoyed an extra hour of sleep. When he still had not woke up by 7:00 a.m. she decided to wake him. After all, he needed to be fed, and she wanted to hold him. He was adorable! As she touched him, she knew immediately. There would be no pulling him to her breast for a morning feeding. His little body was cold and so, so still. No movement. No waking. Only the silence that comes with death.

The next thing she remembers is her husband standing by her side as the paramedics placed her little son in a black bag and zipped it shut. She said that she wanted to scream, but nothing came out. Only bitter, bitter tears would fall.

The worst was not over, though. Because her son had died at home, the parents had to be questioned about their babys death. She said the questions were at times accusatory in nature and harsh in content. After an hour of painful questioning, it was concluded that her beautiful son had died in his sleep of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome at the age of six months. He was gone. Forever. And Im sorry was the best that the hospital staff could do. It was all that anyone did.