Today, October 15th, is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. It’s a difficult day for so many families because miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss are not uncommon. For most of my life I pushed the possibility of these painful events far to the edges of my mind. Probably out of fear because losing a chid is every parent’s worst nightmare. But after walking with so many friends through these griefs, I now understand how many families are hurting. How frequently these tragedies happen. If miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss haven’t touched your immediate family, they’ve touched someone close to you, someone you love.
So to all the families that are grieving today, we see you and we love you. Here are a few beautiful pieces of writing that honor the lives of babies and help the friends walking beside grieving families to know what to say and how to show up.
In Memory of the Babies We Have Lost: Susanna Spencer
Honoring Life in the Midst of Grief: How to Handle Miscarriage from a Christian Perspective: Better Than Eden
Your Rights During a Miscarriage: Elizabeth Ministry
What to Say When a Friend Miscarries: Catholic Sistas
Remembering the Littlest of Lives: Sweeping Up Joy
Loving Luke: A Life Counted in Minutes Has Changed Us Forever: Tommy Tighe for Aleteia
This Is the Story I Have to Tell You: Mothering Spirit
What to Do When a Friend Loses a Baby: Mothering Spirit
And if you haven’t listened to our Fountains of Carrots podcast episode with Tommy Tighe, today is a great day to do so. Tommy has so vulnerably shared about his beautiful son Luke who died minutes after his birth. He has so much wisdom to offer to those who want to support friends and family experiencing this intense suffering.
I wrote this one for Aleteia today <3
http://aleteia.org/2016/10/15/how-the-holy-rosary-brought-me-real-comfort-after-a-miscarriage/?utm_campaign=english_page&utm_medium=aleteia_en&utm_source=Facebook#link_time=1476519421
Beautiful words. Thank you for walking into that dark valley with your friends who need you, and for sharing helpful links and stories for others who need to do the same. I’ve lost two babies, one to an early miscarriage, and my son Mark who was stillborn at 21 weeks. One I never held, the other I held much too briefly. This day of remembrance and awareness is hard, but it’s so important.