Bits for Sunday, September 20, 2009

**Today's post goes along with the two below it. **

This past Friday marked 21 years since my nephew was stillborn. I always remember him…remember that day…on his birthday, but this year I wanted to do something extra special because it was a big year. One of my friends designs and etches monuments, so I asked her to make a “little something” for his grave. I asked her to use the words This is what it means to be held from Natalie Grant’s song, and she did a beautiful job on a little granite heart.

So after work Friday evening, I packed up the car with my journal, my scrapbook, the little heart, my camera (of course) and a beach towel (yes, you read that right) and I drove to the cemetery. I didn’t really care who might see a girl on a beach towel and wonder if she’d lost her mind…I just wanted to go spend some time remembering.

I won’t spill everything I wrote to him, but here are some parts of it:

Hey Buddy. I think I would have called you Buddy. I can’t believe You have been gone 21 years. Or maybe I just can’t believe how much I still remember every second of that day.

This day is beautiful. The sun is out and it’s warm, and I can hear crickets. The day you died wasn’t like this one…damp and chilly.

I remember sitting in that waiting room, giddy with the excitement of meeting you for the first time – not even knowing that in those very moments, you were meeting Jesus for the first time.

And a little while later they came in and told us they “lost” you. I didn’t understand that. How could they LOSE you? You were a baby, not a set of keys.

And then I knew. And I knew I should cry, but I couldn’t. I tried so hard, but I couldn’t do it. Boy what a switch from today. Today I couldn’t stop. Today I just kept remembering the moment I held you. I just stared at you. No idea what to think. You were big baby – at least an armful for a ten year old aunt.

I remember your funeral and how my face never stopped looking leprous because of all the crying – because by that time I really did understand what had happened.

We sang… “hold us who wait before Thee…near to the heart of God.”

A few years ago, someone else wrote a song about being held… “This is what it means to be held…how it feels when the sacred is torn from your life…and you survive…This is what it is to be loved…and to know that the promise was when everything fell..we’d be held.”

I think of you every time and I cry because it’s true. This is what it means to be held.

I had that phrase engraved and I’m leaving it here today. Because you are held – every day – by the same One Who holds me. You just see Him more clearly.

I miss you, Buddy. I would have loved life with you in it.

The first time I came out here, I tugged on Mom’s skirt because I was confused and I needed answers. The funeral guy told me to leave her alone. Now I’m here alone – still confused – but no one to ask, and no one to tell me to stop.

You should know that I’m quirky. I wore a pink shirt and jeans tonight to come here, because I was wearing pink on my shirt and a denim skirt when I first held you that day. Yes, this quirky charm of mine would have either amused or annoyed you – but I thought you should know.

I am talking in circles and I should probably go. I’ve watched way too much CSI and SVU (everything in my life is an acronym) and being alone in a cemetery is starting to get the best of me.

Anyway, Buddy, I miss you. I miss you, I love you, and I want you to know you are never ever forgotten. Not for a second.

Thanks for making me an aunt. You still hold that record, you know. I miss you, but I’m glad to know you’re safely held.