Child Loss: The Silence is Deafening!

As I think back on the worst moments of child loss and the loss of my sister, the one thing that stands out the most is the silence.  The “absence” of the child that was loved so much leaves a silence that is deafening.  Everything about the silence is a reminder that our child is no longer with us.

No more waking up to the cries of a little one needing his diaper changed.  No more giggles following a splishy-splashy bubble bath.  No more hearing the words “mommy or daddy” fifty or more times in a row.

No excited talk at the dinner table about the soccer game.  No noise  from the vacant bedroom.  No more dirty clothes laying on the bathroom floor or yelling about the toys that are left strewn all of the livingroom floor.

The silence is deafening. 

No phone calls saying, “I ran out of gas again.  Can you come get me?”.  No tears being shed over a broken relationship.  No noise from all night movie parties in the basement with pizza and popcorn.  No running through the house all hours of the day and night slamming doors.

The silence is so deafening that it’s scary!  It hurts to hear nothing but the beating of your own broken heart.  The silence is so painful!!!

No phone calls just to say, “I love you.”  No more calls on special occasions like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.  Only the terrible moments of silence that serve as reminders of what can never be.

When a child dies so much of life is swept away.  In a split second — the second our child’s heart stopped beating — the silence begins, and never again will we hear sounds of life in the same way again.  Losing a child changes everything.  Oh, that’s not to say that in time we will never  learn how to smile again.  We’ll smile one day but  in a different way.  There will always be a wistful longing for our child — always and forever the sounds of silence will echo deep within our heart.

I took this picture because it reminded me of “silence” — but instead of feeling scared, I felt a calm peace within as I looked across the field and gazed into the sky.  I clearly remember this fall day.  The air was brisk.  The sky was gorgeous.  And, I was feeling so alone.  I was remembering the “sounds of silence” left behind from the death of my sister, from the death of my baby boy, as well as the death of my miscarried babies.  I was wondering what life would have looked like had they all lived — as children are   supposed to live.  What would the sounds have been like with them here on this earth?  I’ll never know because the reality is they are not here.

But, the beauty of the sky this day was healing to me.  It gave me moments of peace that I needed.  The golden field was ready to be harvested.  It was time to enter a new season.  The trees would soon lose their leaves.  The air would turn from crisp to cold.  And, for a season the earth would lay dormant and rest.  But, the peaceful part came to me when I was reminded in my moment of silence that spring would return!  In all of its lovely beauty, spring would return!!!!  There would always be silence, but in time I would learn to see some of the beauty of life again.  Never, ever would the sounds of life be the same, but on this particular day I was bathed in the hope that one day there would be less deafening silence and more peaceful silence.

There’s nothing fun about visiting a cemetery.  I wish with all of my heart that it didn’t have to be this way.  There’s just something so wrong about having a stone — a memorial marker — instead of our child with us.  The silence at the cemetery is the most deafening silence of all!  But, it’s also the place where heaven seems most real to me.  I guess that’s why I like the picture with the golden field and the blue sky so much — it makes heaven seem real.

Child loss — the sounds of silence are so deafening.  But, sometimes on rare occasions like the one I experienced in the field, the sounds of heaven are more real than the sounds of silence.  And, I thank God for that!

It  stinks  to lose a child.  It’s the most gut-wrenching pain known to all of mankind.  But, we have to hang in there.  Let’s promise that every now and then we’ll take a walk when we’re feeling miserable and so lonely from the silence that we think we’re going to die.  And, on that walk, let’s find a place of peaceful rest and quietly talk to God.  Let’s look to the sky and imagine heaven.  Imagine our child in heaven.  Imagine the peace and the freedom from all pain and tears.  Sometimes that helps the silence to not be quite so deafening.  Sometimes we have to allow heaven to drown out the deafening silence of child loss!

Love,

Clara