What’ll It Be Like To Meet You, Our Little Darling?

A very special day awaits. Whilst we have been expecting our special baby every day we have also been waiting several months since we found out at our 19-week scan. There is now the ominous feeling that we are literally days away from the birth. Sure, it could be weeks, but there is a feeling that a very special day is just around the corner.

What will it be like to meet our little darling? To meet him or her, to greet face-to-face as it were, to finally see, smell, and touch this precious baby of ours, and to experience our baby passing into eternity as we hold his or her dear body. What will it be like? Will it be traumatic? Will there be a variety of feelings? Should we be afraid? Will we see things we have never seen before? Possibly all these may be true, and then some.

***

We’ve taken you to the basketball,

We’ve taken you to the beach,

You’ve been there in many a shopping mall,

We’ve done all we can to reach.

One thing we’re so keen for,

Yet we’re scared greatly about it too,

When you finally come out through that door,

To meet you will be surreal and all too true.

***

Consistent with the births of my four children, there is no way we can anticipate how the experience of the birth might be felt. And this experience will be unique in my experience. Can there be any way of planning for what might be felt? Will I, as my wife’s husband, be enough support for her? Will everyone in the extended family have the freedom to grieve as only they should be free to? If anyone is traumatised, will I be able to help them?

All these matters are up to God. All I can do – all we can do – is ply our consciousness in faith, and do what the moment requires, whether we are equipped or not.

It is a complete mystery what will be felt just days away. And to travel that week – to, and beyond, the funeral – will be such a first.

Does any of the uncertainty of these words above implicate us in fear? No, only wonder. Neither of us are fearful of the sorrow we will inevitably feel. We know we are dearly loved, and, as an Aunt put it, love is enough.

Love will carry us like a bridge over the chasm of our baby’s death.

God’s love is like that. It is the power to endure much pain in the hope it will mean something one day.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.