A few weeks ago I told my older son about his older sibling. The one we never got to meet.
I told him about Story.
Like things typically go with kids, his question came out of nowhere, “Mommy, why do you call me your rainbow baby?”
My boys know Mommy is a crier, but I think I scared him when I started crying out of the gates.
“Well love, I know we haven’t told you about this before, but Mommy had another baby in her tummy before you were born. That baby died – we never got to meet it. We named the baby Story because he or she was the beginning of my story as a momma. And Story lives in a complete, healthy, beautiful body in Heaven with God now. Since you’ve given your life to Jesus then someday you’ll get to meet him or her and we’ll all get to worship God together forever. I call you my rainbow baby because you are proof of the promise of God’s goodness in our lives after a really sad time. You are our rainbow, one of our beautiful answered prayers. There isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not reminded of how good God is because of your life.”
“Oh, ok. I’m going to go ride scooters now!” (<—— still laughing over that one! To be fair it was his way of processing and we’ve talked more since then.)
Miscarriage never stops hurting. The loss of our first baby will always catch me off guard, take my breath away, and I will always cry. That’s part of my story now, and even in the pain there’s peace in that. But I can’t help but see how Story’s life is an amazing way to share not just the Gospel, not just the story of Story, not just the value of human life, not just the promises of God, not just the how precious W is to me, but ALL of them at the same time. Story’s life, however short it was, was not in vain. His life is continually giving more meaning to mine and Nate’s, but to his brothers’ lives as well. His legacy is tinted with sadness to be sure, but even more than that it’s one of comfort and compassion and love.
And that’s a legacy worth sharing.
If you’ve experienced miscarriage or infant/child loss please know you’re not alone. You don’t have to go through it by yourself. Please reach out and don’t go through that pain in isolation. I will always be here to listen and pray and cry with you.
If you’d like to check out my other posts on miscarriage you can do so here:
Story’s 6th Day – Remembering the Baby We Lost Never Gets Easier
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