Description and Synopsis

On September 4, 2011, I gave birth to our second child, Cora Abigail. She was stillborn, having died in the womb at 31 weeks gestation due to an umbilical cord accident. This blog chronicles my reaction to what is the most profound loss I have thus far experienced in my life, the questions to which I am gradually finding answers (and many that still remain unanswered), and my reflections on what I'm learning through this grief process.

I am keeping a paper journal to record my un-edited and un-censored writings, and the posts on this blog will not be exact replicas of those writings. I will back-date my posts to reflect the actual dates on which the paper versions were written.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

House of Cards

It seems that, at some point, I will have to decide how to proceed. There are two paths.
  1. Angry, hurt, cynical, bitter, defeated, and using my experience to justify my attitude and perspective on life; or
  2. Broken yet surrendered, clinging to God's promise of love for me, and making the best use of the "spaciousness of my converted heart"
My brain knows which path is right. Which path is less painful overall. Which path most honors Cora and what she meant to me. Which path will make me into the wife, mother, friend, and daughter I'm supposed to me.

But it's hard - God, it's so hard. I feel like God needs to be punished somehow for allowing Cora to die, for allowing me to hurt like this. I want to hurt Him by pulling away, but not talking to Him, by not asking Him for anything, but not including Him in the things I once did. And yet I know that's not the right way. I don't really want to go it alone. I fear that that would be even worse than what I've got now. I trust because all the other options are rubbish. I trust because I'm too afraid not to.

"...What new factor has H.'s death introduced into the problem of the universe? What grounds has it given me for doubting all that I believe? I knew already that these things, and worse, happened daily...I had been warned...not to reckon on worldly happiness. We were promised sufferings. They were part of the programme...I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it's different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not in imagination...If my house has collapsed at one blow, that is because it was a house of cards. The faith which 'took these things into account' was not faith but imagination...It has been an imaginary faith playing with innocuous counters labelled 'Illness,' 'Pain,' 'Death,' and 'Loneliness.' I thought I trusted the rope until it mattered to me whether it would bear me. Now it matters, and I find I didn't."  - A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis

Good to know I'm not the only one to have this crisis of trust.
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