My Dear Cypress

By Micah Pitner

It’s been two years since I wrapped up a little wooden 3 for your dad, a surprise announcement of a gift on the way. I told him that I knew the timing would be challenging but that I was so excited for the joy and completeness you would bring to our family of four. I have loved you ever since.

The next few weeks are full of grim anniversaries: the day a friend, by God’s providence, asked the right question at the right time, and I nervously told her about my newest baby, saying out loud for the first time that you might not be well. The evening the ultrasound tech handed me the radiologist on the phone, then waited outside the door for me to exit. She told me she was sorry as I swiped away tears and stifled a sob. The confirmation appointment, when another tech kept her face blank, and the screen turned away from me. And the final, panicked drive to the emergency room, as if you needed to prove your relation to your siblings by making your delivery as dramatic as possible. You lived your entire life in those few short weeks. I prayed and wrestled and pleaded and cried, but always, in the end, I put your life in the care of Jesus. Because whose hands safer? And who loves you more?

Here is what I need you to know, my dear child:

I still laugh every day. There is still so much joy in the world and so many reasons to be thankful. The sun still shines. The fall leaves still take my breath away. Your brother and sister are delightful; your dad gives my heart a home.

But also this: you were, are and will be so loved. You are not just a lost pregnancy. You are my child, a deeper mine because I don’t share you with anyone else. You were mine to carry, and you are mine to miss. It’s alarming how near the surface the loss of you sits. You are never more than a thought away. The tears are always there, just waiting for a quiet moment or a sparked memory or an unexpected lyric to remind me of the ache where your life should be. There are things I thought I knew that I’m less sure of, now that the stakes are so high. Will I meet you in Heaven? Will I know you when I see you? Longing for a more perfect and permanent Home has always come easily for me, but now it is you that I imagine welcoming me in. I can’t wait to see how beautiful you are. I’m afraid of how much my picture of Heaven has become woven with images of holding you. It can be hard to remember that the joy of meeting my King will make the sweet and longed-for joy of meeting you forgettable in comparison. I’m concerned that I trust rather than know that the goodness of eternity is separate, better, and infinitely higher than seeing your face.

But I am trusting, dear child, in the Jesus I see through a glass dimly and the Jesus you see face to face. He has held me through this grief. He has proved to be enough. And so I cry and wrestle and pray, but always, in the end, I put my hope in His care. Because whose hands are safer? And who loves us more?