A Song to Sing…

She was 36 weeks and 3 days and I was her baby’s nurse. No heart beat. No obvious reason why. No explanation for why the child within her was without life.

As we waited for life to give birth to death, I made her a box. The box we give to patients suffering from a fetal demise…a sacred square box where we place the imprints of the tiny toes, photos of the sweet face of the one born without breath, a homemade knit blanket and hat, and the shared words of joy and sorrow from the nurses. And then we tie a bow on top as if we can contain all the grief and anguish of that labor and delivery room, pack it up in a sacred square box and tie it off. But little do we know, it’s the labor and delivery of a life born without breath that breeds the beginning of a new life song.

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I brought my packaged box into that room and listened to the mama as she shared her heart for her unborn daughter…through tears of both sorrow and acceptance, she tells me that she felt different about this pregnancy from the start and knew that God had a reason for taking this child’s breath before birth. I looked in amazement as She saw such hope amidst such pain and she noted, there is a ‘beautiful melody that God is drawing me into in this’.

As I’m looking through the books that our unit provides to patients suffering an infant loss, I find this one…Who Sang the First Song? I flipped through it’s beautifully illustrated pictures and read the words as it told the story of creation and how God has given every life a song to sing…”that every heart and everything was BORN with a song it was made to sing”. And I thought of her words…this life within her and this story she’s living, carrying with it a beautiful melody. I grabbed the book and set it aside with that sacred square box and we waited for life to give birth to death.

One week later, I see that sacred square box gone but the book remained resting on the counter in the nurses’ station. Disappointed that the family whom I had picked it out for never received those words I thought so inspiring and Pertinent, I moved on and didn’t think much of it. The book remained however and its message rang out, because when is God’s melody ever just sung once. Throughout the week, shifts came and went, but on three specific instances, I sat there in the break room and three different nurses picked up the book and inquired about its purpose at the nurses’ station. I explained I had saved it for a demise patient, but that they never received it and so, there it remained. In all three separate instances, their responses were this…

“I don’t think this is very appropriate for a demise. It’s too hopeful and indicates that the baby had a song to sing…”

“At the end, it says every life has a song to sing, but this baby was born dead so it doesn’t have a song to sing”

“I’m not sure this book is appropriate for a demise patient. This life had no song because it wasn’t born breathing”

The first comment caught me off guard and I thought I might need to read the book again, making sure I wasn’t off track. Then the second, then the third comment…no song to sing?! This life…this life born without breath, just maybe has the greatest song to sing as it teaches us about grief and glory and beholding sorrow and joy in the same instance and the beauty of life in death. That baby’s life absolutely had a song to sing.

Got me thinking about creation and His melody over us and within us… “The Lord your God is with you…He will take great delight in you…He will rejoice over you with singing” (zeph 3:17).

How is your life a reflection of the melody of Christ and creation? And how are you looking to notice the song sung out in the lives of those around you? Through trauma and tragedy & joy and jubilee, every heart was born with a song to sing.

What’s your song, friend? May I implore you to sing it well…

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Love on your people & keep in perspective your beautiful legacy in light of eternity.

Love and Blessings,

Lindsey xoxo