A Found Treasure

As I was preparing for our annual birthday celebration and homage to baby Hart, I stumbled upon a journal entry from about a month after his funeral. Reading past journal entries brings the beautifully messy gift of transporting me back in time, complete with every emotion I felt when I wrote them. I'm often in awe of what I was able to see or understand through the fog of grief. When I think back about that time, I feel like all I could see was fog, so I would often close my eyes, but these journal entries show me otherwise. (Although they also prove that sometimes I was, in fact, blinded by grief.)

February 6, 2005

We went back to church for the fist time since Hart's funeral. I cried when I took Felix to Sunday School class and spoke to the always fabulous Miss Anne. Over the summer I told her about Hart. This was, of course, after we decided to let God prevail. She said, "What a strange thing to know." With the simplest of words, our beloved Miss Anne struck upon such a deep truth. It was a strange thing to know.

I am so grateful we knew. Because of this, we were able to garner so much support, information, knowledge and some understanding.

To know a child is going to die, would many people decide not to have that child, to protect their hearts from unbearable pain, meanwhile missing out on a great, beautiful love? What if that child had 2 months, 6 months, a year, 16 years to live? How long of a life is a life worth allowing? We are all going to die, none of us has a guarantee.

I feel as though, for our family, knowing Hart's entire life would be brief was a blessing. Had you asked me before, I would have insisted that I would rather not know. But knowing enabled us to make a decision. A decision that no parent should have to make, yet everyone should have the right to make.