How can a parent bury their child

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

My post was supposed to be very different today, but after watching the memorial service of Michael Jackson, I had to change it because I just cannot concentrate on anything else.

His memorial service was lovely. He is indeed Hollywood royalty and a pop icon, but from just watching this service you would not know if you did not know him. I saw humanness, I saw the genuine, pure, unselfish love of a mother, a father, siblings, children, gripped by grief at the loss of their loved one and I felt as if they were normal people like myself who I knew personally. My heart went out to Catherine, his mother.

What played over and over again in my mind was how the parents, especially the mother, might have been feeling. I am sure she did not think she would have had to bury a child and many parents still do not think they will bury their children, because in the normal sphere of life, this should never be. My son was sleeping beside me while those thoughts played over again in my head and I just thought to myself, no, I could never do it. I could never bury my child. Think in our case where because of infertility, it was such a struggle to have this precious child, how could we bury him? My miscarriage was hard on us, it is the loss of a child that we wanted so much but still that grief I am sure cannot measure up to the loss of a child who you nurture and care for to the point where they can now take care of themselves. The thing is, even though they are now adults, they will always remain your children in your eyes.

A family in my church, some years ago lost their eldest child rather tragically. This child was engaged to be married rather soon and I am sure the whole family was looking foward to this even with much joy. I am sure the parents were also looking forward to the grandchildren they would later embrace from this union . I remember the day of the funeral the parents, especially the mother was so overwhelmed with grief. Usually it is the mother that seem to feel the pain more and this could probably be because we gave birth to these children and felt all the pain associated with their birth. I remember I was the one in charge of the decoration for this funeral and decided to leave them up for church the next day, being Sunday. After church had ended, the mother came to me and asked why the decorations were still up. I felt so embarrassed and bad that I had not used good judgment and was adding to the pain that this family was in because I should have really taken down those decorations right after the funeral. I did not get over it for days.

Parents, as you clearly see, there is no guarantee that you will not bury your children, but God usually provides the additional strength that we need in situations such as this. We therefore have to draw on him in these times to carry us through. I know this family did it and they are doing much better now. I also know that you never get over these losses and so, I am sure that they still continue to lean on him for strength to continue living.

In closing, I want to challenge those of us who are blessed with children to give them all they need to become adults, who will have good judgment and be able to make sensible choices in respect of their lives, so that they will not have to turn to other things to take the place of what they come up lacking in their lives, as this, as you can see, can sadly lead to their untimely demise. Other things can take them out too, but let us not allow these things to be the way they go.

Those of you who continue to yearn for children, do not let opportunities like this pass you by, learn from them so that when you are blessed with your children you will know exactly how to bring them up so that they can survive in this world that can be so cruel to them. Remember, we have to do our part in......."healing the world, make it a better place..........heal the world we live in, save it for our children."




Until next time, keep clinging to hope.

Pregnant and not knowing it?????

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

How could you be pregnant to the point where you actually go into labour and have a baby without knowing you were ever pregnant. Sounds bizarre to you? well it does sound bizarre to me.

TLC has been carrying a series entitled, “I did not know I was pregnant.” I was watching a couple episodes the other night, all because I could not find anything else on television to watch at that time of the night. There were two stories about two women who had been pregnant and actually gave birth to healthy babies, who did not know they were pregnant.

Each did a series of pregnancy tests which came up negative, had irregular periods and even had periods during the pregnancy. They also had no symptoms of pregnancy which included no visible growth in their abdomens or fetal movements.

The rationale behind this was that some pregnancy tests done at home comes out inaccurate because the tests could have been faulty, probably expired. The reason for periods could be that there was some abnormality in the placenta and in the case of fetal movements, some babies are actually more active than some.

I am sorry I could not buy into all of that. I can understand the faulty pregnancy tests although it seemed crazy that out of doing a series, all of them could end up being faulty, unless you bought from a set at the store that is completely faulty, how unfortunate. In the case of the fetal movements, in my limited knowledge of reproduction I would think that whether or not a baby is less active than others, you should be able to feel some movements. I can understand the case of the abdomen showing no sign of enlargement because I have seen women who were pregnant and did not have a noticeably large abdomen. Those women are said to carry the pregnancy in other areas of their body, namely the back. Not sure how accurate I am with that. I can also understand the absence of pregnancy symptoms because a few lucky women, apart from the growing abdomen, have little or no other symptoms at all.

Of course I am happy for these women who literally one day woke up and found that they are the proud parent of a newborn baby, but I am sure you are getting that I am also annoyed. Well, my annoyance, apart from the fact that I do not completely understand how this could ever be possible, stems from the fact that when my husband and I were struggling to have a child, I remember seeing some episodes of this same program. Many months when I felt I could be pregnant and would test, even though I saw the negative result, I would hold on to the fact that like those ‘lucky’ women, I could still be pregnant. I would retest and the same negative sign would appear but I would still hold for dear life that I could be pregnant and mine could be just one of those cases, where I would one day wake up in the hospital with my child in a bassinet beside me, without knowing I was ever pregnant. Of course, this did cause me more pain and anxiety when I realized I was never going to have it that easy or be that lucky.

I would imagine I am not the only one who have fallen victim to this and would therefore like to tell TLC that this program does cause women who are trying to conceive more pain and anxiety, pain and anxiety that they surely do not need any more of. I cannot tell you not to air your program but just to let you know the negative effects it has on women dealing with infertility.

My readers, please let me know if this has ever happened to any one of you.


Your feedback is anticipated, and in the mean time, keep clinging to hope.

The gift – A parent’s love for a child

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

Today this will be short and sweet.

Among the last words that Farrah Faucet wrote to her son Redmond, was thanks for giving me the gift of the love for a child. She was writing to her son who is in jail for charges relating to drugs and the fact that she can say this without any reservation is a testament to how forgiving, how pure, how powerful yet simple, a parent’s love for their children can be. I must say, those words went straight to my heart and my soul. What made those words even more impacting on me is that I can now say that I know fully well this love that she is talking about and I am very grateful that I have been given this great gift. When you are afforded the privilidge of having a child, this is indeed a great gift and one that should never be taken for granted. Notice the verse above that is permanently affixed to all my posts, a child is a gift from God.......Psalms 127 verses 3 & 4, well this is indeed so.

Michael Jackson, yes, I know his story has been playing out so much in the media and you are probabably saying, please, please nothing else about Michael Jackson. I will be saying something positive about the man, so bare with me. He certainly lived a strange and difficult life and had terrible things happened and said about him in life and now has even more terrible things being said about him in death. Amidst that all however, I saw a father who loved his three children, whether they be biologically his or not. I saw one video with him and his children one Christmas, opening gifts and taking pictures. I saw another of him feeding the youngest a bottle and yet another with his kids out in public and trying to protect them from the media. If I can use these images to judge that he has every bit of a father that he should be to these children, then I will. His actions were certainly those of a normal father I must say, nothing abnormal there. The only abnormality I saw was when he dangled his youngest child out of a hotel window to the paparazzi. That surely was poor judgement and could have ended differently. For someone who did not have a childhood and spoke of how is father abused him as a child, he has surely made up for that with being a good and normal father to his children. Michael surely experienced this gift that I am talking about, the gift of a parent’s love for their children and I am sure if, like Farrah, he knew that he was going to die, he probably would have written them the same letter. He is gone, too soon of course, but I am sure he is a better man because he is gone knowing this love, the love of a parent for their children.

It is certainly not fair for anyone who wants to have children to be deprived of experiencing this love due to infertility or other reasons. As one who thought I would never have experienced it, let me say I am in your corner, and you know that fully well by now. I know the pain all too well and let me say further that fostering or adoption can fill that void. I can imagine it might not be the same as loving a biological child but it should be able to fill that emptiness.

In the mean time though, keep clinging to hope.