Today as my peace choice I would like to share the blog of my beautiful and amazing friend Laura. Her and her family are very precious to me and as her story tells they recently lost their unborn child, a little boy they named Nicholas. Each of their girls I have nicknamed after they were born, their sweet little boy I had already nicknamed Peace before they found out that his short life was already over. While they never got to hold their sweet little boy in their arms, I know they will always hold him in their hearts and his life was real and meaningful and significant to them. I know that his brief experience of life will change theirs forever.
We were surprised recently to learn we were expecting a new baby. Because of the surprise, and the difficult sickness that came with the first trimester, I felt terribly unprepared. However, with the return of semi-normal health, I slowly began to wrap my mind around this new child. I imagined the tiny warm body I would soon be cuddling and nursing. At 14 weeks, I drove to my appointment with a glimmer of hope, and a naively comfortable attitude. In my head, I was still laughing at the inconvenient timing, and learning to accept, as John assured me, “God’s time is not our time.”
Then, an hour later, I sat looking at the ultrasound of my baby curled up very still, without the blinking little heartbeat on the monitor. The events and sadness that followed were hard. There seems to be no protocol for grieving an unborn child. However, naming our baby was a gift. It gave us the ability to talk about him like a real person, and acknowledged that our grief was for someone unique and unrepeatable. And now it gives me the opportunity to remember to you Nicholas Wilson.
When we gather as a family to pray, we believe we step out of our time and into God’s time. We are united with Nicholas, as well as our loved ones and all the saints, before God in eternity. In those precious moments, I am now especially grateful that God’s time is not our time.
We buried Nicholas on our land, a short walk away from our house site, during our first winter snow. We came back when it was warmer to bring some flowers and walk in the woods. Nearby is a cool cluster of trees where we intend to build a tree house. I look forward to planting daffodils, and starting our nature collection while John works on the house this coming year. The land feels much more like our home now.
Thank you for your prayers and kind words.
