Feeling Vulnerable
Cheryl and Michael Haggard cradle their son, Maddux, before he died at six days old in 2005.
I read an article in the newspaper this morning about "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep", an organization that helps parents to grieve the deaths of their infants by taking high-quality photographs of them. The article and photographs left me in tears in the booth of the restaurant where I habitually sprawl out and read my three Sunday newspapers.
It has been like this for some time, and I don’t completely understand it. Whenever I read about a stillborn child or see a couple pushing a Down’s Syndrome baby in a stroller, my eyes threaten to well up and I am almost speechless. Perhaps as a father I am more sensitive to this, but it is more than that, I think. Maybe it has do with a scare I once had that shook me to the core. But I see such misfortunes and my heart sinks to my feet. I could not feel more vulnerable.
What matter riches and fame and “success” as it is conventionally known in the face of the death of one's child? Especially one's baby?
If I might have the good fortune to have one more healthy child, then I would ask nothing more from life. I wouldn’t care if it were a boy or a girl, or if it were fussy or “difficult” baby (as has been my firstborn daughter), as long as it were healthy. I listen to parents complain about the stress of parenting and say to them – as I say it to myself – the following: “If you want to see real stress, imagine yourself with a baby that has leukemia! Now that is stress!” It keep developments in perspective.
If my wife and I might conceive and bring into the world one more child, and that his child be born healthy, and perhaps that I could live at least ten years more to give him a good start – then I would consider life and I square in our accounts.
It is all I would ask. All else is secondary.
Baby number one born full of vigor and in good health!
Comments
I came accross your site by accident; and had to comment. My baby was born with Leukemia and you are right, it is a horror taking a baby through the torture of treatment.
However, the misfortunate is not in the child itself, and I am sure parents of Downs babies would say the same thing. The misfortune is in the challanges they face - which are most unfair of he innocent.
My little girl, now a survivor is a blessing beyond words she has taught me so much about myself, the world around me - the goodnes in people and the purpose of life. Her life, the person she is and has made is an incredible blessing and we could never imagine thinking any other way.
I furthermore want to add that the choice to have a child always comes with risks; But they are worth it.
Best wishes for baby one and every baby afer :-)
Posted by: Sara | August 18, 2008 08:13 AM
My wife and I would be celebrating the sixth birthday of our daughter, Jenna Grace, this month, had she been able to live beyond her 30 long and difficult days with us. The pain experienced by a parent in losing a child is indiscribable. Jenna passed while in my arms, her last breath a struggle and a memory that is forever engraved in my mind. With the grace of God we are blessed with her and our four other children. Life is a miracle and we should all be thankful for this gift. Her short time here has changed my life.
Posted by: Jim | August 21, 2008 08:44 AM
I, too, stumbled across your blog accidentally. But I am a photographer, and an affiliated photographer with Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep in South Florida. I got involved after hearing about it from other photographers.
About a year before I had, I had a friend who was 5 months pregnant and had to deliver a stillborn baby. I wish I had thought to offer my services then (you don't really think of it at the time) because even though she has subsequently had 2 beautiful, healthy children, she always wishes for just one photo of the one she lost.
Strange how life is sometimes.
Posted by: Lisette Arencibia | September 27, 2008 11:59 AM
Hi, I have seen another perspective: family friends have a profoundly retarded (and deaf) "child". I used to enjoy playing cars with her (even in my 40's I could make her laugh and it made me laugh) but sadly, she lost her sight and with it any ability to play or interact except on a very basic level. Now she's a difficult and bitter 35 year old--and the tragedy yet to come is that she will long outlive her parents, passing her care on to her siblings and their children. A multi-generation tragedy. I sure don't have answers, only questions. Please keep posting your provocative thoughts, THEY HELP!
Posted by: Jim | September 29, 2008 02:00 PM