Asking Why

And you don't realize how good you have it
There are things worse than sleepless nights with cranky infants
There are sleepless nights alone

~ Stephanie Paige Cole

I am starting to feel that all this is very unfair.  I can accept that bad things happen, that we live in a broken world, that tragedy strikes.  What I am starting to have a hard time with, however, is that this particular bad thing happened to us.

When there are women aborting their babies . . .

When there are parents who don't want to be parents . . .

When there are parents who shouldn't be parents, who harm their children . . .

When there are probably thousands of people who would be glad for a miscarriage or stillbirth to end their unwanted pregnancy . . . why did this happen to us?  Why were we the one pregnancy out of two hundred that ended a baby dead before she breathed?  Why, when we loved our daughter so deeply and wanted her in our live so desperately, was she the one that had to die?

I know that there are no answers, nor a reason behind Eve's death other than that bad things happen.  It helps when I remember that God knows this pain -- that He lost a child, too.  The cross has taken on a whole new meaning.  And I know that my baby is with God, and I can only be happy about that.  I am not sad for her.

But I am sad for me, and for my husband.  I am sad because we didn't just lose a child -- we lost an entire future.  I am grieving not only Eve, but also how I will never see her evolve into a woman, that I will never make her a birthday cake, that our house will never be filled with her laughter and burbles and tears.  I am sad because I am a mother without her child.  I am sad because I don't know what will become of me now.

I am sad because I have lost the safe naivete that pregnancy always ends happily.  I am sad because the joy of pregnancy is forever ruined for me, because any future pregnancies will be exercises in staving off terror.  I am sad because I have learned in the hardest of ways just how precious life is, and that makes me nearly dissolve with fear at more loss, especially of any future children we might have.

I am sad because we wanted our daughter.  We wanted her so badly.  And now she's gone.  How can I ever feel safe again?

I know that there are no answers -- well, nearly.  There is God.  There is always God.  I am so happy that, even with her tiny life, our Eve turned so many eyes to Him.  And while it is tempting to let the swelling fear overwhelm me, I know that He will carry me through -- through this moment, the coming months, any future pregnancies, and beyond.  He is big enough to withstand my questions, my anger, my broken sobs that come in the morning.

Is that -- is He -- an answer to my "why" questions, to my sadness?  I don't know.  I just know that He is enough.