A New Lesson

In my life events often arise I feel need to be shared. Of these, some are good, some are bad but all of them contain a lesson of value. I had one last week at the place of my employment, La Grande Cemetery.

Very early Monday morning, I received a call from a young man. He said he was calling to enquire about prices for plots and burials. I recited the information, told him my hours and asked if he would like to come look at our maps sometime to see what we had available. He said that he and his wife would be there within the hour, softly saying “Because our baby died unexpectedly a few days ago and we need to make arrangements.” My heart dropped at those words, as it always does, and with a catch in my voice, I told the young man I’d help him any way I could.

I have phone calls, more often than I care to, from funeral directors setting up burials for deceased children. I seldom meet the parents; a fact, I’m ashamed to admit I’m thankful for, as children’s deaths are the hardest part of my job for me to endure, always remembering the funeral of my eight month old niece, Katrina. So, from the end of the phone call until I watched their car drive up to my office, my inner-spirit sent continual messages to my brain for calming strength.

The young couple, Andrew and Loree, mid-twenties, arrived at my office. Their red-rimmed eyes and haggard faces told the story of their heartbreaking past few days. They sat across from me and we talked of burial plots in our cemetery up on the hill. They had driven to the cemetery to find the perfect place prior to coming to my office, they told me. We looked at the map and as God had intended, the perfect spot for their child was available. We returned to the desk, to start the paperwork and the father began telling me about his son. “Galen, that’s his name. You should have seen him,” he said, “he was the most beautiful little boy…perfect, really.” At his declaration of love for his son, my tears started flowing along with theirs; my inner-strength not quite as solid as I’d hoped. The Kleenex box got moved to the middle of the desk. “I’m really so sorry for your loss,” I said, “but I’ll make sure we’ll take good care of him.” “I know,” the mother said, “that’s why we came here, because we were told you would.” Touched by the thought, all I could do was to nod and whisper “We will.”

Two days later, we had the burial for Galen; Andrew made the casket for his son, family and friends attended, the child was laid to rest.

After the funeral, my employees, Matt and Zeb, came to the office. They said that after the funeral, all the family members came up to them, introduced themselves and shook their hands. That had never happened before, they said, and they asked me if I knew why they did that. I said I did know and while trying to blink back my tears I explained.
“Having children of your own,” I said, “you know that before you have someone new watch your child, you want to meet them to assure yourself that they will take good care of your child. That’s all the family was doing. They were meeting the people who will be watching over their most precious possession.” They both nodded, already knowing the answer to their question, but wanting me to confirm. “Whether we like it or not,” I said, “we are the keepers of the souls.”

After funerals, the funeral directors hand us an envelope with payment, a copy of the death certificate and a burial permit for our records. Wanting to finish and move forward from this sad event, I opened the envelope to process the paperwork to find only a check enclosed. I was a little dismayed at the delay in my process but I didn’t realize, at the time, that my lesson was close at hand. I called the funeral home and discovered that there would be no death certificate or burial permit because Galen died at four months in Loree’s womb and as far as the government was concerned Galen never existed.

I’ve never been one to freely discuss abortion with anyone for several reasons. The most important reason is that it’s painful because when I was seventeen I got pregnant (a fact that I have never told my family) and lost my baby girl, Hilary Anne, at three and a half months. I couldn’t bring myself to hold her, when the doctor asked, because I knew that if I did, my young heart might never recover. I, unlike Andrew and Loree, didn’t bury my child but instead let my well-meaning doctor take her. I think about my lost daughter often and hope like hell that when I die, she will be there so I can tell her how sorry I am that I couldn’t give her my touch, didn’t say out loud how much love I had for her and apologize for not asking for the help needed to bury her properly. My only excuse being I was young, naïve, and a coward; I pray that she is forgiving.

My lesson is this ~ In my heart and mind I believe that when you can hold, love, have pride and mourn over a child, regardless of it’s age, from time of conception to the time of it’s death, that child is a human being, deserving the right to be recognized, counted and loved. This event, that child and his parents gave me a gift ~ strength of conviction. Just a warning, don’t talk to me about the moral issue of a fetus not being a human being, unless you're willing to “hear” not just listen to my answer.