Sammy

5 years ago, October 2006, I found out I was pregnant with our third child. Three weeks later, I found out that child had died and I miscarried. For the first time in my life, I experienced true, inexpressable grief. I had felt sad before. I had felt grief and depression before, but never in my life had I experience the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking agony of losing a child. The pregnancy was unplanned and unexpected, but that didn't change the fact that I loved my child the instant saw the two lines on the stick. And when my child died, I remember falling to the green carpet in our master bedroom and screaming because there were no words to express the intense pain I was feeling in my heart.
At the time, and in the months that followed, I didn't think I would ever heal from that pain. I didn't think that anything could ever fill the emptiness my baby had left behind. I truly thought I would live the rest of my life in agony and I definitely could not understand why God would put us through that anguish. I gave my baby a name, Sammy. Since I didn't know if it was a boy or girl (although I always think of him as a boy), I picked a name that could work for either. And I got a pendant with October's birthstone for the month I lost him and June's birthstone for the month he was due. I vowed never to forget my son and I haven't.
But I have healed. 5 years later, I wonder, every now and then, how life would have been different if Sammy had lived. I wonder what it would be like today with a four year old in tow. I wonder if we ever would have made it to Modesto, or if I would have survived having a baby, a one year old and a three year old. But I don't cry over Sammy anymore. And looking back, I do see how God used our child's brief existence on this planet to affect change in our lives.
I look forward to the day when I will get to meet my son face to face. I picture him playing in heaven, blessing people up there with his beautiful spirit. And I want to encourage those of you who may be experiencing the pain of loss that healing does come, little by little, over time, but you never do forget.