Friday's Faith - The Child-Loss Mommy . . . Who Lost her Mommy

Me, my mother, and Merry Katherine (2003)

Friday's Faith

The Child-Loss Mommy . . . Who Lost her Mommy

Three days ago, on Tuesday, December 28, I got the dreaded call, that my precious mother had passed away. (My siblings had been trying to warn me Mother was getting weaker since the day after Christmas, but I could not bear to hear my mother was getting weaker when I was so far away from her and could do nothing to help her. I could not even answer the phone. I could not even bear to hear their messages or read my brother's text, so Tommy had to listen and read for me, then relay the general messages.) And now it is SO painful to lose the mother who has loved me every day of my life, the mother who understands child-loss like no other person in my family ever could as she lost my brother Buddy, her oldest child--her first-born son, thirty years ago when he was only 38 years old.

Flash back to four years ago. On the night of the day we discovered Merry Katherine was killed, Tommy and I each felt such a coldness in the center of our heart that neither one of us was able to sleep. Our baby girl was gone from the face of this earth? It could not be. And what did she go through on her final day? Our bodies could not rest. Our hearts viscerally felt the ice-cold reality that our minds could not fathom.

So again, three nights ago, on the night of December 28th upon going to bed after my mother had died, my heart was feeling what my mind could not conceive - that my mother, the nurturer of my entire existence, was not here? Had left the face of this earth? My body was restless and could not sleep. If I did lightly drift off, I was immediately awakened with a coldness in my heart, with a concurrent strong pining for my mother. I was feeling a combination of feelings, wrestling with what did she feel on her last day, in her last moments before leaving this world, along with feelings of desperation of how am I to live on the face of this earth without my mother, the one who had understood my heart from day one of my life?

I could not sleep. The pining was too great. A poem began going through my head. I could not sleep until I got up to get the feelings out and to write the poem that was incubating inside, trying to process this aching cry down in the core of my heart. I flashed back to the icy feelings I had when Merry Katherine died. So I decided to get up and write this angst out as best I could. I began to write...

The Child-Loss Mommy . . . Who Lost her Mommy

They all cried out, each and every one

Each and ev'ry sibling. -- I could not come!

Can they not see, I cannot lose another one!

Now I cannot sleep ~ my heart cries out:

Where is she ~ who always looks out

to care for me ~ I cannot find

her anywhere ~ where'd she go?

Can I go there? ~ Does no one know:

A child-loss mom can't lose her mommy!

I can't look up; I can't look down...

My child's not here, now my Mom's not roun'?

Dear God in Heav'n, can You hear my guttural cry?

Did You need her with You, more than I?

I know I prayed - You her soul to take

if she must go ~ hold her in Your arms to take...

But now she's gone, my heart cries out:

"I've lost my child! Where's my Mom?" I shout!

Please dear God, how much pain can I take;

And yet, sweet comfort -- in Your arms, she'd wake.

Please dear God, help Your hurting child!

Father of all Comfort, come to me.

Losing a loved one is hell on earth.

And yet, even in Heaven, You felt death's dearth.

You know this pain:

You lost Your Child when He lost His mother.

You've felt the worst pains --

Pains worse than any other.

You hear these cries of a grieving mother.

Who lost her child and now her mother.

Hold me in Your same loving arms

That rescued my mother from any more harms.

Thank You for Your love on both You've poured out

At the greatest loss to You ~

Thank You that this life's not all there is;

Your Child conquered death by giving us His.

Now we'll live with Him in eternity,

Held in Your arms and held in His.

Hold my mother ~ she is Your child --

While I pine for her ~ nurture each of us, Your child:

The mommy, the grieving mommy, and the

grieving mommy's child.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles..."

~2 Corinthians 1:3-4a NIV

Merry Katherine reading Grandmommy her Mother's Day card

with Aunt Lyn looking on

Mother's Day, 2004

My precious Mother

Mother's Day, 2004

My brother Rick and I, cutting up with Mother

Thanksgiving, 2004

Me with parents, siblings, and nephew

Left to Right, back row,

Angie, Daddy, Mother, Curt (Buddy's son)

front row, Dianne, Lyn, Don, and Rick

October, 2003