Eight years ago my wife and I were expecting our second child. We went in for a gender scan at 18 weeks and they couldn’t find a heartbeat. To say that we were gutted is an understatement. Some may not see the death of a child in the womb as equivalent to the death of a child outside the womb but, despite the differences which do exist, the death of every child after conception is a loss worth mourning. Mourn we did—we still do. 

I wish I could tell you that the medical professionals offered some modicum of comfort but instead they heaped on the trouble. Because of how labor went for our first born we had very few potential options, only one of which seemed actually viable. Billed as an abortion, the procedure was carried out by a woman whose bedside manner left a lot to be desired. To be fair, she likely performs the same procedure in situations where the hope is not that the child comes to term but still, we were grieving, she was laughing and complaining. “Can we spend time with our daughter after the procedure?” “Haha, no, this is a destructive procedure.” “Can we keep the remains?” “Ugh, I guess, but that’s more paperwork for me.” 

We did get the remains, and had she been in the womb two more weeks legally we would have received a death certificate. Her remains are with us in a small urn, along with a pair of handprints we fought to receive, and we think about her daily, but especially today, eight years later. We had a funeral (here is the link to another post describing that service) and we gave her a name. Her middle name is Claire, because of my wife’s grandmother. Her first name is Anastasia, because of the hope of the resurrection. 

Eight years have passed since our hearts were first troubled by the news that there was no heartbeat. Some days are harder than others. Some days, like today, the sense of grief weighs heavy in the air. Some days, like a random Tuesday, we don’t give it much thought and then when we realize that, the guilt comes, the guilt of forgetting a life that mattered and yet was never given a chance to flourish. Some days, like when we welcomed each of our three successive children or celebrate their birthdays, we feel a mix of grief and happiness. But, every day since, our hearts have been troubled in one way or another thinking about the girl who heard the Word in the womb but never got to hear it outside it. 

I trust in the Word, not just the marks on the page, but the Word who became flesh, whose death and resurrection gives a promised future to flesh beyond death, who spoke a word to troubled hearts the night he was betrayed. 

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” — John 14:1–3

He was speaking to his own, his disciples, and he was preparing them for the time when their hearts would be troubled. My wife and I have hearts troubled in a different way today than those first hearers did but the promise rings true. Christ when to prepare a place and he will bring us the future he died and rose again for. I believe this promise, but that doesn’t mean my heart is no longer troubled. It is hard to believe it because I still see her urn even as I see her name which points me to her future and mine, Anastasia—Resurrection. 

Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled

Always there comes this parting of the ways,
The best is wrested from us, borne away,
No one is with us always, nothing stays,
Night swallows even the most perfect day.
Time makes a tragedy of human love,
We cleave forever to the one we choose
Only to find ‘forever’ in the grave.
We have just time enough to love and lose.

You know too well this trouble in our hearts,
Your heart is troubled for us, feels it too,
You share with us in time that shears and parts
To draw us out of time and into you.
I go that you might come to where I am
Your word comes home to us and brings us home. 

Malcolm Guite, Love Remember: 40 Poems of Loss, Lament and Hope (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2017), 68.