Reunion

I have two coffee mugs that were given to me thirty-nine years ago next month. On April 1, 1981, a Wednesday, I gave birth to a son, just 23 weeks into what had been a tricky pregnancy. He lived for only four hours and I was inconsolable. Two girls from our church’s middle school group, Missy and Sara, came to visit a few days later with these mugs. They sat and cried with me, and for a few moments it seemed like I might be able to crawl out the black hole I was living in, but after the girls left I fell back into it. Easter was less than three weeks away, (April 19th that year!) but my mood was definitely more like Good Friday.

While I was in the hospital hoping and praying for the miracle of hanging on to my pregnancy long enough for our baby to have a chance at survival, Joel brought me a notebook and a Bible. I spent my days filling that notebook with summaries and reflections on children born to – and given up by – mothers. Sarah, Hagar, Hannah, Moses’ mother, Mary, and others were my sisters, and I cried with them as Missy and Sara cried with me.

Finally, as Good Friday approached, I realized that God was crying with me as well. God knew better than anyone the pain of giving up a child, not just once but twice. First, when he sent Jesus from his heavenly home to be born of a human mother, and then again as he died in agony on a cross, God voluntarily took on that sorrow. But the story doesn’t end there. Good Friday comes and goes, and Easter takes its place. God and Jesus are reunited. Finally, I felt comfort in the knowledge that someday I will be reunited with my baby, too, as will my Bible sisters be reunited with theirs. How this will happen is a mystery. With Ezekiel, when God asked him, “Can these bones live?,” we say, “You know, oh Lord!”

I keep those two coffee mugs tucked away in my kitchen. Missy and Sara will never know how they have become a reminder for me of the comfort they brought me that day, and of the resurrection hope they bring to me whenever I see them.

-Wendy Guillemette