Atticus and I, the couple who married with the firm belief we'd never want children, lost five of our children to miscarriage. Oh, how we wanted those children.
Miscarriage doesn't get easier with practice. I crumpled every time. I needed grace, a God who would let me weep and scream at Him. A God who would let me collapse, exhausted, into His arms and then grant me the grace to somehow keep moving forward. To get up again the next day.
I needed my husband. He was devastated too, but was also my miraculous rock. We needed to cry together, fall apart together, and pick ourselves up together.
I needed my friends. Friends who listened to me, helped me heal. Friends who were bearers of light and love.
And I needed, years later, the beauty of all the stories that came together to become After Miscarriage. In gathering my own stories and those of others who were generous enough to share their lives and the too-short lives of their children, I experienced a new level of love and healing.
Here are the words of a friend, a father who contributed to the book, and they say it all:
If any blessing has come as a result of all this, it is the intense desire to see my children. We Christians believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. I hope that if I live my life as well as I can and come to know Him more each day in prayer, Our Lord may place me under His mercy, and after the resurrection of the dead, I will be able to embrace my children for the first time and forever.
How I miss them.
