Healing sounds ridiculous.
I know what it's like to heal after being wounded by another. After a laborious struggle the spot heals leaving behind an either embittering or empowering scar. But to heal after loss? A baby, a friend, a marriage... Is it possible to heal from that?
I remember when a friend lost her son. She was afraid her memories of him would become duller with time, making the reality of his presence even further from her grasp. I feel the same except I have no memories...no knowledge of this soul. All I have is that instinctive bond of pregnancy. A huge part of that was the hope of meeting him or her at term. I want to remember a baby we've never met, but in order to do so I must revisit the expansive hope that was dashed by loss. I guess that's hardly different from other losses.
We always hope--and typically assume--we will have more time. And that is exactly what we lose. In losing a person, a marriage, health, we lose the hopes and dreams of our future. We have the assurance of restoration in heaven--ultimate restoration of God's perfect creation. But in the mean time, we must let go of a life that we just knew would be ours. But in the end it was not. For me, a life so close to my own soul that I feel I am losing a different version of Me in the future. Even though I will continue to experience faith, hope, and love in my life, and this loss will create a Me that I need to be, there is a string hanging from my heart. It was so briefly connected to this tiny soul, and now it hangs loose....prone to unravel. Maybe that is what healing is like: sometimes I will completely unravel, the Lord will continue to knit my heart back together, but He allows the string to hang loose. That string is all I have left of my connection with this baby's soul. I am not clinging to sadness or loss, but I have to be willing to remember. I need to allow this tender part of my heart to remain, to be touched, to reach out, even if it threatens to unravel me at times.
