Teaching Loss

It's been a very long time since I've been on this blog.  The reason being that I got pregnant with baby #2, and life got busy, and my energy got short.  But I've wanted to do a few other posts on here of things that have been on my mind.  The first one that I keep coming to, and can't quite figure out, is to explain why you won't be reading about our second daughter on this blog.



We lost our Angel at 5 months gestation.  We went in for a check up, and there was no heart beat.  Our beautiful Angel was born the next day.  We have been so blessed with a multitude of spiritual and temporal blessings as we've gone through this difficult trial.  I've felt the emptiness that Angel has left in her spot in our family.  But I've also felt her near, and I know that, because of temple covenants made and kept, she is forever part of our family.  Our family doesn't have any hole in it, and there isn't an ache of incompleteness; there is only the sadness that I feel when I say goodbye for a time to any of my loved ones.

One of my biggest concerns, however, was what I would tell Miss.SingSong about what happened to the baby.  She had just started ten days earlier greeting the baby every morning by hugging and kissing my belly.  How could a child, not yet two, understand what had happened?  This became a matter of urgent prayer, and in answer to that prayer, I found myself simply telling Miss.SingSong that "Angel is Miss.SingSong's sister!"  And "Angel went to live with Jesus."

That's all I could muster at first, and probably more than she could understand.  We blew up a pink balloon to celebrate Angel's birthday, and that she's part of our family.  We've started welcoming Angel to Family Home Evening every Monday night when we welcome the rest of us.  We visit the cemetery regularly to have family prayer there, and to remember Angel.  But does any of this compute with my now-two-year-old?  I doubt it.  I think she knows there's someone named Angel, and she knows the fact that Angel is her sister, and Angel has flowers at the cemetery.  But she is also learning more every day about Christ.

As Mr. Perfect and I have strived to talk about Angel, and to teach Miss.SingSong about what happened and where Angel is, we have inevitably talked about Christ much more.  He is the reason that we have hope that we can be a forever family.  "And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins."  We speak every day of the hope that Christ has given us that we can be a forever family, and the hope we have that we can repent when we make mistakes.  I've learned through the spirit that I can teach loss by teaching of Christ's victory.

And I'm so grateful to my Angel for being a light in our family to point us to Christ and to help us better remember Him.