“God has given me three sons, all living,
only the youngest lives with God.”
~ Oliver Heywood
“How many children do you have?” is a question I am often asked. No matter how many times I have heard it, it can still raise my heart rate and make me flustered. Sometimes I still hesitate. Should I just say, “three,” since that is how many I have on earth? What if they ask their ages? Then I will have to explain that my daughter died. But laying aside someone else’s potential discomfort, there is only one answer that sits right with me: “Four. I have four children.” My mother’s heart cannot leave out my second child. I am her mother.
Recently I took my three-year-old to the children’s hospital ER. After about three hours of waiting, a nurse came out and called for the next child in a loud voice: “Leila!” Instinctively I thought she was calling us; she was calling my daughter’s name. Within a second or two reality set in, as I watched a different little girl with her mother walk toward the nurse. But hearing that name made my heart leap—my daughter! I am her mother.
One of the hardest things about the death of a baby is that you have nothing to show for your motherhood. After saying goodbye to Leila, we came home from the hospital, and I folded up all the baby clothes I had washed and put them away. Then I gave away the newborn diapers and baby wipes I had bought. One of the most agonizing experiences was having my milk come in a few days after her stillbirth. My body was still providing for my baby, responding to the hormonal triggers following labor, urging me to feed a newborn who was not there and who did not need my milk. Almost as hard as the milk coming was the milk drying up. And yet everything in me still yearned for my baby. I am her mother.
DEATH CANNOT SEVER
A live birth or a surviving child is not what makes you a mother. Since your child’s life began at conception, so too did your motherhood. The death of your child does not undo that reality. We see this beautifully displayed in Luke’s gospel. In a town called Nain, Jesus witnesses the funeral procession of a young man:
As [Jesus] drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.
Luke 7:12
I love the language Luke uses. The man is dead, but he is still “the only son of his mother.” Death didn’t sever the mother-son relationship. Luke continues:
And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Luke 7:13–15
In life and in death, this woman is his mother. And in resurrection life, Jesus gives her back her son.
We see this again with Jairus’s twelve-year-old daughter. Jesus and his disciples have just been told that the little girl has died:
And when [Jesus] came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him, except Peter and John and James, and the father and mother of the child. And all were weeping and mourning for her, but he said, “Do not weep, for she is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But taking her by the hand he called, saying, “Child, arise.” And her spirit returned, and she got up at once. And he directed that something should be given her to eat.
Luke 8:51–55
This little girl’s parents are as much her father and mother beside her deathbed as they are when she wakes up and needs food. In both examples, the expression of parenthood is different, but the reality of the parent-child relationship does not change—even in death.
MOTHERHOOD WITHOUT THEM
So what does motherhood look like for us bereaved moms when there’s no baby to rock, and settle and feed—when there is no child to raise? Of course, it will look very different for each of us. I have come to appreciate that there is a particular complexity to grief that comes with a miscarriage before a baby’s gender can be known. But one thing we have in common is that we all carry around our child in our hearts, our memories, and our longings. In The Kitchen Congregation, Nora Seton captures it poignantly when she writes: “The death of a baby is a melody played softly through its mother’s life like an intimate dirge, and you have to have died a little yourself to hear the music.”
You and I carry that sad melody—the intimate dirge—around with us, and very few ever hear the music. So it can be helpful to find ways to express our motherly love for our children. For me, it means that when asked, I include Leila in the number of children I have. I am more able now to push past the awkward- ness of the other person when I tell them I have a baby in heaven. We often remind Zac and Hannah that they have a big sister, and we try to help Ben remember when he met and held his little sister. Jonny does a little catechism with the kids on the Lord’s Day that reminds them we’re about to go to church and join Leila and the angels in worship. We have Leila’s hand and foot- print on display on our mantelpiece and her photo on top of the piano. Every Christmas we hang ornaments on the tree with her name on it. And when we get the opportunity, we love to visit her grave in Cambridge, England. Some of our parental love for her is expressed in caring for that little plot of land—cleaning her head- stone, sowing grass seed, and planting daffodil bulbs. And every year on March 17, now called Saint Leila’s Day in our home, we go out as a family and enjoy a meal in remembrance of her. Then we return home and let off yellow helium balloons into the sky, our gaze lifted heavenward, longing for that sweet reunion.
I don’t get to watch Leila play sports, braid her hair, or take her out for mommy-daughter dates. How I wish I could do all those things! But I won’t forget her, and I won’t stop talking about her. The world may forget you are a mother to your child. Even those close to you may forget—unintentionally, they may not mention your baby’s name or include him or her in a birth order. But God will not forget them. He blessed you with a baby whom he knitted together in your womb. In life, and in death, he views you as your child’s mother. You are still a mother.
Sarah! my last, my youngest love.
The crown of every other!
Though thou art born in heaven above,
I am thine only mother,
Nor will affection let me
Believe thou canst forget me.
Then,—thou in heaven and I on earth,
May this one hope delight us.
That thou wilt hail my second birth,
When death shall reunite us,
Where worlds no more can sever
Parent and child for ever.
~ “A Mother’s Lament” by James Montgomery
Excerpted from You Are Still a Mother © 2023 by Jackie Gibson. Used with permission of New Growth Press. May not be reproduced without prior written permission.
You Are Still a Mother
Grieving the loss of a child to stillbirth can be a lonely and agonizing experience. Sadly, this overwhelming loss is far more common than one may think, affecting around 1 in 160 births. Jackie Gibson honestly acknowledges the sorrow, the loneliness, and fears that come from suffering the loss of a child while pointing to the gospel with gentleness and understanding.
