Unmovable mountains

The day your child is born is the happiest day of your life as a parent. Undeserving as we are of God’s grace, being blessed with a child gives us an insight to why God loves us the way he does. No matter how many times we stumble, how many times we mess up, his love is unconditional and sees past our flaws. Looking into my beautiful boy’s eyes that early morning in May all I could think of how it would kill me if anything ever happened to him.

I never knew that that day would arrive sooner than I expected. You never expect to walk out of the hospital without your child. A part of me died that day, my soul shattered, I completely lost my will to live. In the midst of trying to revive him, the Dr. told us that they would stop after 10 minutes. In a cold adjacent room, my husband and I uttered desperate prayers that God would spare our boy. Before he ended the prayer my husband uttered the words “Lord if it is your will, we will accept it”. How my heart broke hearing those words because my heart refused to accept that this would be his will, for us to live a life without our son who was just 8 months old at the time.

We spent the next 2 hours with our son taking turns holding him and saying our Goodbyes. Looking at each tiny detail of his body and praying id never forget it. His long fingers, his little forehead, his beautiful eyes, his scent and everything that made him, him. In the moment I felt so broken, an overwhelming sadness engulfed me, and I had so many questions for God. I couldn’t make sense of it all, couldn’t see past my pain, couldn’t see why my husband and I deserved this. Didn’t know how we could begin to live without our baby.

The night he died was one of the longest nights of my life, sleep escaped me, tears filled our now cold lonely room. I kept expecting to hear him cry because his diaper needed changing or he was hungry, or he just wanted to be cuddled back to sleep. Kept hoping I would look into his cot and there he would be sound asleep, and id realize this was all just a bad dream. Coming to terms with the fact that this was now our reality is a crippling feeling.

It was prayers offered by my husband that gave me solace in that moment. I was reassured that God was right there with us surrounding us with his love, because only his love could comfort us in that moment. We witnessed his love through the overwhelming support we received. God’s love was with us through the heartfelt messages, comments and posts of friends, the love our family and friends that rallied behind us, the prayers of friends. You never know how much a small gesture as simple message could help a grieving person. We were also blessed with the advice and prayers of parents that had walked similar paths as us, these were invaluable to us especially at a time where you are searching everywhere for an ounce of hope.

I’m still learning daily that grief is a process and there is no right or wrong way to grieve. Some days are great, and you are comforted by beautiful memories and other days are dark and lonely and it seems there is no end in sight. But one thing I know for certain is God’s love is all you can cling onto to get you by, I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed each day without it.

Words from a song titled “Even if” by Mercy Me always comforts me- “Lord when you chose to leave mountains unmovable, give me the strength to say, it is well with my soul”. It is easier said than done, but that’s all I can do in the meantime, wait on the strength to accept his will as painful as it may be. Every day I’m blessed with a bit of that strength and I’m eternally grateful for that.

Thank you to all the beautiful angels that have whispered prayers on our behalf and checked up on us from time to time, thank you for shouldering our pain. You will never know how your small gestures have given us the grace to move forward in spite of the pain.