Rememering Heather

Right around this time of year, every year, I get in a little funk. I know that isn't a real word. It's hard to describe, though. I'm not depressed. I'm not grumpy. I've been called preoccupied. Maybe that's it; Preoccupied.

On the 12th of August, 1990 (a lifetime ago for some people), a small girl came into my home, having left the bosom of the Father to be my baby daughter, Heather. She was small, a little premature, but healthy and beautiful. She came on a Sunday.

On the 9th of September, 1990 (a lifetime ago for some, but yesterday for me...), the Lord sent an angel to call Heather away from me and back to her heavenly home. It was around 2:00 a.m. The rest of us were sleeping. She left on a Sunday.

The four weeks that sweet little girl was mine to hold were brief. Yet, her brief presence in my life has changed me for the rest of my life. One would think there could be no regrets in a four week long relationship, except for regrets for what might have been, but never will be. I have one, though.

The last day I had together with Heather, and of course, I didn't know it was the last day, for how could I have known she would die in her crib that night?... That last day was the first day she cried.

I don't mean fussy crying, I mean she cried like something was wrong and I didn't know what was the matter. I was 22 and she was my second baby. I had tried everything to soothe her: changed her, tried to nurse her, held her. I finally just sat in the rocker and rocked her and hummed a tune to her that was left in the recesses of my mind from my own childhood.

But, as I sat humming, I felt irritated- irritated that she continued to cry and I couldn't comfort her. I was tense. I was frustrated. I was possibly even a little angry inside, feeling like a failure as a mother to this cranky little crying baby.

That is my regret. I have come to learn, over the years, that babies can feel your tension. If you are tense, angry, irritated... they feel it. I have to wonder if Heather was telling me something through her cries and all I told her was that she was frustrating me. I won't know until Christ comes again and all things are made whole and restored... but I wonder some times.

I've learned that a crying baby is a blessing in the middle of the night. How I would to go back in time and wake up with Heather crying at 1:30 a.m. instead of having slept through that night that changed my world. How I would like to be able to go back and hold her while she cried and soak in every sound of her little voice with gladness and return to her my peace and comfort instead my tension. If only...

Thanks to that little girl, who came and went, I have been more peaceful to the children who came after her... and to Daniel Jr., who came before. I don't want to have any more regrets should today be the last day I hear my children cry.

It isn't likely I'll bury anymore of my young children, I pray to God. But every day I still have breath, and every day they breathe, I want them to feel peace and love from me. I want them to know, when they leave my home to go their way in the world, that they were never a frustration to me. They were only my greatest joy and that which has given my life meaning.

Heather, I remember you... and thank you.