It’s been a tough week in Savannah—or as one employee put it, a heavy week—and as I’m writing this it’s only half done. It isn’t because of the number of families we’ve been called upon to serve; it isn’t because someone well-known in the community died or because we lost one of our own.  When we unlocked the doors at 8:00 Monday morning, we knew we would be taking care of three little ones.   Three infants lost for different reasons, at different stages in life, but all taken far too soon.  We have been so fortunate to rarely ever have a service for a baby, but this week we held three.

We all know Death is no respecter of persons. He does not simply call the old or the terminally ill.  But the children.  I will never understand why the children must be fair game.  And I know the parents we have seen this week feel the same, but to a much, much greater degree.  It is one thing to grieve the passing of someone who has been blessed with a long and full life, but the loss of an infant is so difficult on so many levels.  It isn’t just a life that has been taken but hopes for the future, dreams of what that little one can do and become.  The mountains they can climb . . . the discoveries that will be theirs . . . the continuation of a part of us.  All of that disappears when they draw their last breath.

And the parents . . . we want so much to take away their pain, to give them answers to the unanswerable questions . . . and we know we cannot. Because nothing will take away the pain.  Because there are no answers.  They may sit and wonder what they did wrong, what they could have done to prevent the unimaginable.  To be entrusted with a life so innocent and filled with promise, one so small, so fragile, so dependent upon us for everything . . . there must have been something.  Of the many questions that will come for which there are no responses, these questions can be answered, both with the same word.  Nothing.  They did nothing wrong . . . and there is nothing they could have done to change the outcome.  But the questions remain and the greater the doubt, the greater the pain.

When you see families who have suffered this kind of loss, whether their child’s age was measured in weeks or months or years, do not be afraid to say that child’s name. You will not be reminding them of what they lost; I promise you, they will not have forgotten.  You will be telling them their child is more than a memory, that the brevity of their life did not lessen their impact.  You will be telling them that you remember, too.

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