1/18/2019 0 Comments NamingWe weren’t planning on naming our little one, the spark who came to us so briefly before leaving again during our most recent treatment cycle. These early losses are difficult to pin down, to know how to process. Their presence was barely known, so does it even make sense to choose a name? We also didn’t plan to name them because we have a name(s) picked out for the child(ren) we still sense will be joining our family. But when we realized that what we needed to do was commend our little one to God, it suddenly made sense to do so by name. And a name easily came – I believe it was given to us – a name we had never considered before but was just right. It was December, just three weeks after we learned of our loss, when our little one received their name. That evening as we went for a walk in the winter dark, we found ourselves making our way to a Tree of Remembrance that stands on the front lawn of a church in our neighbourhood each year during the Christmas season. Next to this gently-lit evergreen is a mailbox filled with blue ribbons and a sharpie. A sign posted near the tree invites all those who are missing someone to write that person’s name on a ribbon and tie it to a tree. Those who are named are then remembered during a special Blue Christmas service held at that church. My partner wrote down our baby’s name for the very first time on a sky blue ribbon and I tied it to the tree. As we walked away we noticed how it felt like a missing piece had been found and a few days later when we commended our little one to God by name a sense of completeness settled over our still aching hearts. When there are few memories and grief is so intangible, naming helps make them real. When there is no child to carry or birth, to hold and care for, naming is one of the few parental acts available. Naming honours not only the child’s brief presence, but the months and years of preparation and anticipation, the longing and hope that went into this particular experience of love and loss. While we can’t share this child with the world, we can speak their name to those we choose to share our story with. In the grief over loss at the very beginning of life, naming is a healing ritual, a holy rite. In naming, we have a chance to be like God, to speak the name that will open the door to the reality of what has happened and who our baby is. Perhaps naming the baby is the most transcendent act available to us. Long after mementos from the pregnancy or birth are put away, long after the insanity and intensity that marks the first year of grief, the baby still has a name, and we can still speak it.
–Jenny Schroedel, Naming the Child, p. 17 -
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