All Saints’ Day
“I will go anywhere I hear her name.”
That’s the line I remember from a 2011 memorial service held at St. Thomas Midtown Hospital for parents who had lost a child due to miscarriage, stillbirth, or early infant death. The annual event was set aside for especially tender loss and as the hospital chaplain resident, I was invited to participate. Families who knew that tender loss intimately gathered in a space where prayers and reflections were shared. When names of their babies were read, parents and siblings came forward to light a candle in their memory.
It was a conversation after, the “Thank you for coming” type I shared as I made my way from family to family, that revealed a grieving mother’s wish to hear her daughter’s name spoken out loud. It was affirmation that her child was real, known, and loved.
Eleven years later, I’m still thinking about that truth.
When a person dies, their names are often buried with their bodies. We fear that the reminder will bring pain, as though the widower, parent, or orphan might have forgotten. But they don’t. Pain is there, regardless of what we do or don’t say.
What that mother said to me, to any of us approaching someone in grief, is that their person was. Is. Continues to be. And it’s okay to ask, “What was their name?”
For me, it’s David.
Continue reading “#43: Hickory Hills”
Kitty Eveling 