Remembering the Hardships

Going through hardships as husband and wife is both physically and emotionally exhausting. Encountering adversity and walking through it together is all consuming. 

Though you know that it won’t last forever, you don’t know how long it will last. And even though you want the pain to leave as soon as possible, you learn that you can’t force the pain away. All you can do is to take one day at a time.  

Recently, my husband and I took an early morning walk. We chose the hilly route that goes around the cemetery where our son Elliott is buried. If he’d lived, he’d be thirty-seven years old on the twenty-seventh of this month. 

Walking down the steep hill and back to level ground, I told my husband, “That was the toughest trial.” My husband concurred and then we remembered. 

The death of our child was by far the most difficult tribulation we ever went through together. We’ve encountered other trials since then; the teenage rebellion of one son and the estrangement of another. But the death and grief of little Elliott surpassed both of those trials. 

In our second year of marriage, when my husband mentioned starting a family, I was the one who hesitated. 

But then, after our first son was born, I discovered that cuddling, nurturing and loving our son came naturally for me. So four years later, we had a second son. 

Then, in the ninth year of our marriage, when our sons were six and two, I mentioned to my husband, “Let’s have one more.” He was surprised, but agreed.

I sailed through the third pregnancy the same as the first two. No morning sickness, the usual amount of weight gain, and I knew what to expect with labor, or so I thought. 

When labor kicked in, the heart beat was missing. I’d last felt intensive movement 24 hours prior. 

I’d thought for sure this kid was going to bypass the birth canal and kick his way out through my stomach. It was that intense. Then all went still. 

I thought he’d gone to sleep. After all, he’d had a workout. But later I learned that a knot that had formed in his umbilical cord had tightened, cutting off his oxygen. He’d actually been fighting for his life. 

Delivering him was the saddest day of my life. 

Putting one foot in front of the other was how we moved through our grief. 

Then, a year later, I asked, “Can we try just one more time?” 

Why Bother?

Why bother remembering the hardships? Going through the hardship eventually brings us to the place where we can share it as one of our memories.