I have a new found respect and honor for my mum. My mum & I have always had a good relationship. We went through the normal teenage years were we argued and I felt she didn’t understand me. Through my early twenties as I was discovering who I was I was convinced that I was nothing like my mum. I never doubted that she loved me and that would do anything for me but I just thought we were nothing alike. From being a little girl I was full of emotions and my mum is very logical and straight forward. With the best intentions, she would always show me the good in a situation and help me to see that things weren’t as bad as I thought.
People would always tell me how much like my mum I was and I always thought it was just that they didn’t know me that well. Over the last year though I have discovered much like her I am and what a privilege and blessing it has been to be raised by such an incredible mother.
When my siblings and I were young my mum stayed at home with us while my dad was a Pastor in inner city London. She continually made sacrifices for us, she sacrificed her time, her money and her freedom. She raised us to be strong Christian people with good character and she loved us all deeply. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that there has never been a time in my life that I didn’t know she loved me, even when we disagree. But loving people that deeply comes with a cost and that cost is the inevitable pain you will undoubtedly feel.
My mum once told me that when she looked at me the first time she realized that if anything ever happened to me it would break her. There is an unexplainable bond between a mother and a child and that bond has the power to break your heart into a million pieces.
I have observed my mum during the difficult times in my life and I have seen how much she wants to protect me from pain and heartache and how much it pains her when she can’t.
Most recently I looked into her eyes as my heart broke at the loss my own children and saw the pain she felt for me. Her own child was in unexplainable pain and there was nothing she could do about it. She could protect me from it or fix it. All she could do was hold my hand through it and trust me to Jesus.
Now one question I have pondered a lot recently is at what point do you become a mother? Is at the moment that you hold your child for the first time, is it when you see them on the ultrasound screen, or when you see those two pinks lines on a pregnancy test. And the conclusion I have come to is that you are a mother from the moment God begins knitting them together in your womb. As he knits them together that bond begins and I believe that it is never broken not matter how long you got to keep them. Now I only got to keep my babies for 10 weeks and in the scheme of life that seems like such a small an insignificant amount of time but even so, they are my children and I am their mother.
I saw a quote recently that said “A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. But…there is no word for a parent who loses a child, that’s how awful the loss is!” Neugeboren.
Honestly, I believe there is no word because you are still a parent, you are just a parent without a child. And that is a kind of pain and loss is like no other. Although the overwhelming grief is starting to ease there still feels like there is part of me missing and there is. I am missing my children and a part of my heart will always be with them.
My husband and I decided to name our twins. We wanted to acknowledge
their lives and to recognize that they were our children if only for a short time. We named them Ezekiel James and Phoebe Joy and although I don’t know for sure that they were a boy & girl that’s just what my heart told me and I feel like God has confirmed to me on numerous occasions. I have a necklace with their initials on that I wear every day and I had a picture created with their names on it. When we have future children we always tell them about their older brother and sister.
At first, after we lost the twins I said that I never wanted to get pregnant again because the pain & grief was so overwhelming that I couldn’t imagine risking having to go through that again. But as time has passed I have realized that whether we adopt or more biological children I am still risking the chance of pain. And unfortunately, until we get to heaven pain in inevitable especially if we allow ourselves to love and be loved.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements….. To love is to be vulnerable.” C.S. Lewis