Henry’s stone is finished and placed at the cemetery.  My mom called a few weeks ago to let me know and asked if I’d like to see a picture of it.   I did and I didn’t.  It took us over a year to choose it, order it and have it placed.   Josh had his own reasons for wanting to wait to order the stone.  He felt like it was one final task he needed to complete for Henry as his father.   It was a little different for me.

At first it was a grotesque and hideous thought to picture Henry there, even though I knew it was just his body. For months following Henry’s death, I could not think about the cemetery at all.  Maybe it was being in the “shock” part of grief, but I couldn’t bear to think about headstones, or slabs, or inscriptions.  I couldn’t fully accept that we had actually lost our son, that we had a funeral and said our final goodbyes this side of Heaven. Slowly, picking out Henry’s stone  became another really difficult task that I knew had to be done and I wanted to just get it done. I knew that, for me, the longer we put it off, the harder it would be.  Josh and I finally sat down together and faced the fact that we had to choose a stone.  We had to design a memorial for the final resting place for sweet Henny’s body.

It’s not something that you ever imagine yourself having to do when you are holding your baby for the first time or praying that he will sleep through the night or deciding what baby food to introduce him to first or smacking his hand for defiantly throwing rocks into the pool.  The whole time we were discussing questions such as, “Should we abbreviate the months of his birth and death or write them out?  How many of his roles should we list? – son, brother, grandson, great-grandson?” We were having to fight the feeling that Henry should be here with us!  He should be wandering around, sneaking Fruit Loops out of the pantry and laughing at his brother and sister making whoopee cushion noises.  If there’s anything that snatches you out of your daydream and plops you down into reality, it’s picking out a headstone for someone you love.  I knew that I wanted Henry’s stone to point to the glory and goodness of God and not to my own grief.  I knew that I wanted it to reflect light and hope and not darkness and depression.

About a month after Henry’s death, I wanted to start reading the Bible daily, but I didn’t know where to begin.  I’m embarrassed to admit that after 30 years of being a Christian, besides the occasional devotional or Bible study, reading scripture had never been such a priority to me. It was now a lifeline to hope and joy and my sanity.  I knew that King David had also lost an infant son and so I wanted to start at the beginning of David’s story.  I turned to I Samuel and began reading when I immediately came across the story of Hannah.  It was a story I knew well, but could identify with it in a whole new way.  Hannah longed for a child and cried out in anguish for God to give her a son.  If God answered her prayer, she promised to give that baby back to Him.  God gave Hannah a son whom she named Samuel and she kept her word.  After he was weaned she brought him to the house of the Lord and gave him to Eli the priest saying, “Pardon me, my lord.  As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord.  I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.  So now I give him to the Lord.  For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.”  And he worshiped the Lord there. (I Samuel 1:26-28)

Unlike Hannah, I didn’t set out to give Henry back to God.  My human and maternal nature will always want him here with me.  But I am giving him to God now.  Every day I give him to God in my heart, in my mind and with my soul.    When I read this verse I knew it would become poignant in our walk through grief.  But even more than the daily giving of Henry to God was the visualization that, like Samuel, upon separation from his family, Henry starting worshiping the Lord – and he continues to do that now.  If there is one thing that brings real comfort after losing Henry – If there is one thing that makes this not a hopeless tragedy – it’s that Jesus conquered death and Henry’s life continues now in a beautiful joyful place.  I know Henry is worshiping the Lord now and it doesn’t require faith on his part, he can see and hear and walk with the Lord!  There was no other verse to inscribe on Henry’s marker.  Josh chose a picture of Henry taken on the longest day of the year to put on the headstone.  He was swinging in a park in Iceland and the sun was shining through his frizzy blond hair, making it glow .  It was taken on a day when the sun never set.  Like in the photograph, I can picture Henny now in a place where the sun never sets – his blond hair illuminated and his face bright with joy, except that there is no sun because the glory of God is so bright that no sun is needed.

We were in the States for a couple of weeks in between our departure from the Middle East and the beginning of our new adventure in France and we tried to complete the task together, but then Josh had to leave to start his new job and the task wasn’t finished yet.  Going to the memorial place by myself to order the stone was so hard. The man at the memorial place was gentle, kind and a believer as well – which helped me get through the experience. For a month or two following my visit I emailed with him back and forth making lots of tiny decisions and adjustments. Now that I see the stone completed, it is almost a comforting reminder that this world is not our home. Henry’s body was always temporary, just like all of ours.  What happened to Henry will happen to all of us – it was always going to happen to Henry. It just didn’t happen in the timing or in the manner that I would’ve chosen.

I’ve met a beautiful mother and kindred spirit through our blog.  She lost her precious toddler in a crib death, the details of which were eerily similar to Henry’s death.  She recently shared a quote that said something like “we are often scared to die until we lose a child, then we are scared to live.” I have found this to be true. Right after Henry died and frequently afterward I’ve had a gut wrenching fear that God will have me live until I’m 90 and I will have to live 53 years without seeing my sweet boy. The fear has subsided and I trust that God will give me the strength to live as long as He wants – and I can honestly say that I do want what He wants and nothing less.  He has provided and brought us through so much already.

When I went to the cemetery with my mom for the first time since Henry’s funeral to bury my Nana’s ashes, I found it comforting as I looked around at all the headstones.  One day the pain will end and the rejoicing will be pure and eternal.  One day I will worship face to face alongside Henry and all of those who have gone before in a place where there is always light.  One day we will be home.