04/15/2026
I was 7 when I learned about death. ( April 13,1973).
My sister was pregnant with twins and quickly and unexpectedly lost them.
The little white coffin was barely bigger than a shoebox.
It held two sweet baby girls and a lifetime of hopes and dreams.
I was too young to understand it, but I remember her inconsolable sobs at the cemetery. The hushed words and awkward silences, the worried looks of family members, and the moments of “ holding it together” and then completely falling apart.
How my sister was somehow supposed to move forward with her life while leaving two pieces of her heart and soul behind.
I learned about grief and sorrow.
How people either didn’t know what to say or said things like,”She’s young she can have more kids”. Thinking that somehow that statement is supposed to comfort a broken heart, empty arms, and a nursery and home waiting to be filled with the joy that comes with babies.
( Please don’t say that to grieving parents. It does NOT help! It trivializes their loss.)
It doesn’t matter if that mom was 6 weeks or 6 months along. It doesn’t matter if that baby was a miscarriage, born sleeping, or passed away after birth. That life was precious and it mattered. The pain is real and raw.
An often silent grief and pain not openly talked about, but carried in a hurting heart that mere words cannot explain.
( This post is not to trivialize the dad’s loss nor grief in these situations. They too suffer loss and grieve in their own individual way. Usually trying to be strong for their partner. Holding in their own hurt and rarely expressing it because society focuses primarily on the mom and her loss. The dad is often forgotten and left to struggle in his loss.)
I’ve spent the last week and a half with my sister. The anniversary of her twins death was this week. Life’s moved on. The years have passed, but the loss is never far from her thoughts.
She’s one of the strongest women I know. She’s faced love, loss and grief over the years in ways that only other people who have walked similar paths could possibly understand. ( In 1985, she tragically lost another daughter who was only 8.)
These parents are members of a group that NOBODY wants to be a part of——parents who have lost children.
It’s not natural. Babies and kids aren’t supposed to die. They are supposed to grow up, live life and outlive their parents.
Time doesn’t heal wounds, it changes them. You don’t get over the loss of a loved one, you walk through it. Just like a wound scars over after time, the loss is still there just filled in with the passing of time, life, busyness, mundane chores , work, addictions, etc…
Grief and loss know no timeline.
While your world seems to spin out of control the rest of the world goes on as if nothing has changed.
Unaware or uncaring that you have a gaping hole in your life where a child used to be.
No matter who you’ve lost, their age, the circumstances, nor how long ago—-grief comes in waves.
Some days are sweet memories of them, some days they are a passing thought. Then out of nowhere, something will prick your heart— a picture, a memory, an object, a smell, a place, a song—-sometimes it isn’t even something related to their deceased loved one. But something totally random that will cause a fresh stab of grief, missing and longing for what could’ve , should’ve been.
Psalm 34:18 says that “ The Lord is close to the broken hearted.” I know that he has carried my sister through each of her losses. He has heard the cries of her heart. Held her through sleepless nights and long hard days. She clings to the promise of seeing her daughters once again in heaven.
For those parents walking through grief. I pray that you find comfort in his promises , his presence his peace and love.
Lucinda and LuAnn you were gone before your life began but you were loved, eagerly anticipated and missed. Meet us at the gates or around his throne! We’ll see you when we get home.
