Guest Post: Comfort for Early Infant Loss
The following book review was written by my sister Gloria Faber. It was originally published in Clarion 73.11 (August 30, 2024).
You are Still A Mother: Hope for Women Grieving a Stillbirth or Miscarriage, Jackie Gibson. Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2023. 75 pages, softcover.
As I was in the stinky hospital washroom all by myself, I felt my body being torn, I was weak and alone. Then it happened, and I felt God’s presence as never before and I felt pulled into another world. What? That may sound like too much yoga or drugs but let me assure you it was neither. It was a peace that passes all understanding and a bright light shone in the darkness of my fear. It was then that I felt our baby’s final life line release and immediately I knew that the relentless bleeding would stop. I had survived, but our baby had not. The pain of our child’s death was something that would take months for me to process but it was mixed like cement with the comfort of having walked so close to God. This was now our third of eight babies to go to heaven.
About six months later, I went for lunch with my beloved nursing professor, Anne Marie. She shared with me her experience of losing her 16 year old daughter to diabetes and how God had rescued her from a dark hole of grief. At the end of her story, my 24 year old eyes searched her wise spectacled blues for answers and I dared to ask: “It’s been six months since our miscarriage and I’m a complete mess, what do you think is wrong with me?” I’ll never forget her non-judgmental, pro-life answer. “Gloria, you lost a child, it makes sense that you are a mess!” She didn’t compare her pain to mine or downplay our loss. Instead, she walked beside me and held my hand. For the first time, I was able to truly see my grief when I had been downplaying it all along.
Jackie Gibson packs a lot into this small book of 77 pages. She is the wise professor that will hold your hand. She will not tell you that your pain was too little or that hers was more traumatic; she will walk beside you and show you God’s love and plan. Along with the bright cover page of the spring daffodils that bear hope and joy into a grieving heart, one will find love and affirmation throughout this book. It’s short but sweet to the grieving soul searching for answers, wanting to believe that God is still good.
She starts off by sharing her story of her daughter Leila’s life that ended in the womb about one week before her due date. It’s a heart wrenching story where she is not scared to tell you how she really felt. She states, “When Leila died, I entered a very low place where my feelings threatened to override my faith.” She wanted answers to those difficult questions about where God was and why this could have happened to them. Slowly, Jackie brings the reader to the cross for these questions. In Chapter 3 she reminds us of Jesus’ grief and his lifetime of sorrows, how he was acquainted with it and went through it all for us. His ways are not our ways, his will needs to become our will, and he is good even when it doesn’t feel like it.
I like how Jackie uses her experience to show that her feelings were there. She acknowledged they existed but she did not give way to them or say they were more important than her knowledge of God. They were not always telling her the truth and she would fall back on her knowledge of who God is to guide her back to a place of comfort. She shows this in chapter 5 where she writes: “How could a good God ordain for my daughter Leila to die? I don’t know. Like Job, I must be willing not to understand and to leave it in the hands of a God who does, A God who is “righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works’ (Psalm 145:17).”
Gibson’s explanation of life in the womb being precious and Biblical no less helps heal a hurting heart. Babies such as Moses, Samson, David, Jacob, and John the Baptist are all examples of God loving life in the womb and ordaining these babies for his purposes.
Gibson spends a whole chapter on the fact that, even though you have lost a child, you are still a mother. I suspect that truth will be the most comforting and sweet thing for any mother suffering loss to read. She goes on to describe her own journey with PTSD. Sadly, it is very relatable and yet I am sure her and I are not the only ones to have suffered panic attacks, hypochondria, and insomnia. For those new to this experience, this chapter will allow someone to take a step back and see the broad picture of their healing and yet not feel alone in it.
Although this book is written especially for women I would like to acknowledge that there are men who are still fathers through a loss as well. This book is for both mothers and fathers who will never raise children on this earth. Perhaps the idea that they are still parents will lead them to think more about adopting or perhaps being godly mentors to other children in their lives?
Towards the end, the best advice Gibson has to give us is to share and to not stop sharing as the pain really does lessen with time. It’s probably the best way to support others, to give affirmation to your own story and pass on God’s love.
Finally, her greatest comfort is the hope we have that our loved ones are in heaven and how we live in an upside down world of God’s Kingdom, waiting for the finally resurrection of our bodies and the return of Christ. These theological truths are the right way to end a heavy topic. As Gibson quotes from John Brown at the beginning of chapter 12, “Their bodies will come forth out of their graves to meet them, incorruptible, immortal, powerful, glorious, and all death–divided Christian friends shall meet to part no more.”
What a scene to look forward to!!
