The Oil of Joy for Mourning

When my first son was born, I was overjoyed to be able to stay at home with him, but I wasn't prepared for how quiet and solitary a life it would be. We had only one car, which my husband drove to work each day, so I was literally a "stay at home mom.” Ours was the only house on a commercial street, and we had no neighbors. No one stopped by to chat or invited me over for lunch and an afternoon of scrapbooking. It was just me and a baby too young to speak. 

As all the quiet and solitude soaked into me, I began to suspect that I might be depressed. Every time I read a magazine article or heard a special lesson in church on the subject, I examined myself, comparing my feelings against the list of symptoms. Had I lost interest in activities I once enjoyed? Did I sleep too much or too little? Was my fatigue the normal result of nighttime feedings, or was it a sign of a deeper problem? My feelings were never an exact match for the lists I studied, but my mind drifted back to the idea over and over. 

Years passed. One son was joined by another, and the house became steadily noisier, but I remember the noise against a background of silence waiting to reassert itself when the babies went to sleep. But one particularly quiet moment changed how I saw everything in my life. 

On one of the rare days when I had the car, the boys and I were running an errand. One of them—probably the oldest—was being difficult. I can't recall exactly what he was doing, but no matter how many times I told him to stop, he wouldn't. In frustration, I said, "I don't appreciate how you're acting right now. I am not happy!" 

His response stopped me cold. "Yes, you are!"

Now, I don't think he meant to say anything profound. He was just arguing for the sake of argument (a personality trait which, sadly, he inherited from his mother). But the words meant far more to me than he'd intended.

Yes, you are.

Yes, you are happy.

And to my everlasting astonishment, I realized that I was. Underneath the quiet and the solitude ran a current of deep satisfaction. I was doing what I'd dreamed of when I was a teenager—being a mom. I had two healthy, beautiful children and a husband who loved us and showed it every day. Most of all, I had my faith, which gave meaning to every part of my life and told me I was doing the most important work in the world.

My happiness wasn't a never-ending fireworks display. I had struggles and challenges, and sometimes I got a little blue. But in spite of the limitations of my life and its occasional disappointments, I didn't have to go searching for happiness. I had it in my hands, and no bad day or occasional bout of melancholy could take it from me.

Over the years since then, I've often been grateful that my toddler son's casual words helped me see what I'd overlooked, and I wonder how many other people are happy without even knowing it. I've also learned that the kind of deep-down happiness I carry with me depends on faith and love, but it doesn't depend on my circumstances. And it certainly doesn't depend on a life without sorrow or pain.

Those first two boys were followed by two more and then a little girl. We moved to other, noisier houses. We'd always thought that six would be the right number of children for our family, so we decided on one more journey through What to Expect When You're Expecting.  A few months later, we learned that we would be able to give our daughter a little sister, an ally against her four older brothers.

The months crawled by, as they always did when I was counting time in trimesters. Finally, the due date was in sight, and I visited my doctor for one last prenatal visit. 

One of my favorite things about Dr. Wilde was that he didn't panic. That's an important quality in an OB/GYN who specializes in high risk pregnancies. Mine wasn't, but I still appreciated his ability to greet every concern or symptom I brought to him with a smile. "That's perfectly normal," he assured me every time, and I believed him.

I missed the first sign that something wasn't perfectly normal. The nurse couldn't get the Doppler to work properly. No matter where she held it, no heartbeat came through the tiny speaker. She went to find the doctor, and he scolded her. Never tell a pregnant woman you can't hear the heartbeat. No need to scare her. (Listening from the hallway, I felt an urge to protect the nurse--I wasn't scared, honestly, I wanted to say.) But when the doctor took over, he had the same problem. He frowned, just a little, but smiled at the same time, and went for the ultrasound machine.

The machine was old, second hand, because the doctor preferred to leave ultrasounds to the specialists. He stood between me and the screen, moving the transducer over my belly. Back and forth. Back and forth. After a minute or two, he turned to face me. The smile was gone and the frown was deeper.

"Now I'm a little worried," he said.

"But you're never worried," I replied in a voice almost too tiny to hear.

I remember the rest of the day in flashes, images floating against a white background.

Stopping at the doctor's desk to call my husband and tell him I was going to the hospital without saying why.

The doctor gripping my arm and keeping up a steady stream of conversation about I-can't-remember-what while he walked me from his office to the maternity wing.

The state-of-the-art ultrasound machine in the labor and delivery room, its extra-large screen filled with an image I'd seen dozens of times before—the black and gray outline of a baby's head, the spiky curve of the spine.

A perfectly formed heart with four perfectly formed chambers, now perfectly still.

Perfectly still.

“Stillbirth” doesn't only describe the baby who no longer squirms or hiccups or sucks her thumb. It describes the quiet of the delivery room, door conscientiously shut, far from the sound of another newborn's first cry. That's how Caroline came into the world—silently.

I have mourned and wept with many people in the midst of their sorrow, but the truth is that someone else's pain can be set aside. I could decide, "That's enough. I'm not thinking about that anymore right now," and close the door on it, at least for a little while. But this grief, this anguish, wouldn't be shut out. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't say, Scarlett-O'Hara-like, "I'll think about that tomorrow." It demanded to be thought about, to be felt, every second of the day, unceasingly.

How does the underlying foundation, the constant background, of happiness survive against the assault of such pain? It didn’t provide an anesthetic, or a barrier, or even a cushion. I experienced every throb of my loss. Instead, the happiness flowed along beside the pain, a twin current, and I felt them both.

Maybe happiness is the wrong word for it. Maybe joy or peace would be better. They were constantly renewed by the knowledge that I wasn't alone. I was surrounded by people—friends, neighbors, and especially family—who loved me. And most of all, I knew beyond doubting that this separation from my baby was only temporary. In the hospital room, while I waited for the birth that was also a death, I whispered over and over, "I want my baby. I just want my baby. Is that so much to ask?" And the answer I received wasn't no. It was not yet.

The current of joy that flowed beside the pain made it possible for me to heal. The grief has never completely disappeared. Even today, many years later, thinking about my lost daughter can bring tears to my eyes. But it also brings joy. We're certain we'll see her again, and that certainty means we can talk about her without sorrow. We can even joke. When the Oreos or the pizza slices or the Little Debbie cakes don’t divide evenly by seven, we call the extra “Caroline’s piece,” and we argue over who gets it.

On her birthday every year, we have cake. We don't sing or light candles or buy presents; we just have cake. And everyone has an opinion about what flavor Caroline is in the mood for this year.