The Aftermath

Ugh. Is anyone still reading this blog?  If so, why?  It's so DEPRESSING!  I wish I didn't have to read this blog.

I feel a litle like we are coming out of a shelter and looking around at the wreckage left from a tornado or hurricane.  We prepared as best we could, but nothing can prepare you for the reality of tragedy.

We feel immensely grateful for all of you- you who are praying and fasting and thinking and worrying about us.  This network is what keeps me sane... knowing if I have to tap out for some crazy hard grieving moments, my friends and family will step in and help me and my family.  Sometimes I make it to the end of the day and wonder how I got there... from where did this food magically appear?  How did my kids all have fun playdates?  How did my children get dressed??  Where did all this clean laundry come from anyway?  Where did I read those healing words that are playing on repeat in my brain? My babysitter Nicole especially has been a literal godsend to us during an extraordinarily difficult time.  I will miss her immensely when she leaves in a week. She has stepped in and kept our routine normal which has been a lifeline, especially to my children.  My mother and Kurt took care of so many little details related to travel and funeral arrangements that I did not have the capacity to think through.  My in-laws sent the children little gifts from Frederick to give them a connection to him and also help them feel comfort.  There are so many people who have done things for our family, I cannot even start to name them.  We are so deeply grateful.  Thanks to all of you who do such wonderful things for us without asking for any recognition or thanks.  We especially appreciate everyone for giving us the private space we desperately needed to process things.  The ban is lifted now- you don't have to feel bad talking to us or dropping by or letting your kids come to our house to play.  I can't promise we will be normal, but at least we are trying to be :).

Today is the three week mark after Frederick's birth and death.  These weeks have been the hardest of my entire life. I feel like I keep saying that and yet I keep having harder days, so maybe I should stop saying that! I left the hospital five hours after delivering my baby boy.  We finalized funeral arrangements two days after that.  Six days after his delivery, we flew to Utah,  and just one week after I met my youngest child, I had to bury him.   We had a small funeral with family members from both sides and then dedicated his grave (next to my dad who died three years ago).  We spent the Thanksgiving holiday surrounded by family in Utah.  Even though Kurt and I grew up in Indiana, we have always felt tethered to Utah in one way or another. 

I don't know what I expected to feel after losing a child; I cannot describe the depth of pain I have felt.  I did not realize I could  feel pain and sadness so deeply.  My grief sucker punches me in the gut, causing me to double- over in pain on a daily basis.  It is horrible.  I wish it would end, but I know well enough that we have to go through this.  I have been through injury before and know that healing is painful and inescapable.  The only way around it is through it and it is HARD.

The difficulty with pain associated with death is that the pain is so invisible to everyone else except the person struggling with it.  There are no x-rays or MRIs that can tell you the state of your emotions or your faith.  You cannot see how bad the damage is and you cannot track your healing.  You just have to submit to these horrible waves of sadness that engulf your heart relentlessly, not knowing how long they will last.  And let me tell you- they feel like they will never ever go away.

But at the same time, something hidden inside me tells me that it won't always feel like this. I know this in my brain, but cannot feel it yet.  When people ask how I am, I cannot say "good" yet.  But we are on the path that leads to good eventually and that will just have to suffice.

Because we wish we could have had the capacity to share the funeral with everyone, I am posting some of my comments from that morning.  This captures a bit of how we have been feeling lately.  See below:

Funeral talk for Frederick Kenneth Knight

By Jennifer Knight

"Months ago, as Kurt and I wound our way through a cemetery a few blocks from our home, I thought about burying my little one there, surrounded by strangers.  I tried to imagine visiting him, then leaving him on a cold and snowy Boston evening when the sun sets at 4:30 and we shiver through our sweaters and wool mittens.  And my heart broke.  I couldn't do it.  Then I imagined burying him next to my dear dad, Fred, here in Utah.  I imagined big Fred next to little Fred welcoming him, protecting him, and watching over him and I knew that's where he needed to be.  Luckily, Kurt felt exactly the same.  

So we are here at the same funeral home where we held my dad's services a few years ago.  Frederick will be buried in a casket that was hand-crafted by people active in the arts' program my mother started in our community nearly 40 years ago.  It was stained by a dear family friend; the lining was hand-stitched by people who knew and loved my father professionally at Hillenbrand and the Batesville Casket Company, and Frederick's initials were carved in the top of the casket by Batesville's premier wood-carver who added two cherubs on either side like guardians watching over him.  I feel like he is being buried in a hug, and that is extraordinarily comforting to me. 

We struggled a bit knowing exactly how to memorialize this child’s life, since I was the only person who really knew him alive.  All we know of his life and personality are the wisps of spiritual inclinations we felt while he was in my womb. 

We found out early about little Frederick’s Trisomy-18 diagnosis.  We received word from the doctor just a week or so after Madi’s initial diagnosis and first brain surgery.  Still reeling from Madi’s cancer diagnosis, we were again leveled emotionally, as we have been many times over the last seven months.  To clear my head, I went for a walk around a pond close to my home.  As I walked, I had a conversation unfold in my brain.  “How long do you want him to stay with you?”  the unidentified voice spoke.  I replied in my head, “well, I guess it would be easier if I were to miscarry.  It would be easier to say good-bye to a child I never knew.”  I paused then asked, “how long does he want to stay?”  and the reply came quickly and surely, “as long as he possibly can.”  “Why?” I asked, incredulous that this spirit may want to come to such a sick and surely uncomfortable little body. The response I received was, “to be close to you, to feel your embrace and your love, to soak in every second of mortality and know what it’s like to be part of your family.”  I said, “do we have days? Weeks?”  and the voice responded, “months.” 

I don't know whose voice it was or if it was my own, but I believed it.  Though I admit, I thought these months it spoke of would be outside of my womb.  I thought I would hug him on the outside and that Kurt and the children would come to know him as I did.  Regardless, we all knew that our time with him was limited.  Many times over the last months, I have identified with Hannah in the Bible who promised if she were to get pregnant, she would turn her child over to the Lord for the balance of his life.  As I read her story, I can almost feel her longing as she prays to have a child, her relief as she gets pregnant, and her desperation as she tells her husband after Samuel is born, “I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide for ever” (1 Samuel 1:22).  Oh how she must have cherished every minute with him!  Then when he was weaned, “she took him up with her…and she brought the child to Eli [the priest]. And she said, … for this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him; Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord.” (1 Sam 1: 24-28).   The child grew up in the temple and every year, Hannah would go to visit this child with a new jacket.  I have thought a lot over the months about how intensely difficult it would have been to hand over this child into the care of the temple staff J.  I also think of how light and happy she must have felt every year at coat-delivery time.  If it were me, I would have wanted to sneak away to the temple every chance I got to see him and feel him and know that he was doing ok. 

I really feel that Kurt and I– like Hannah and Elkenah- have lent this child to the Lord.  He is in the Lord’s service now and will continue to be for the rest of his spiritual life.  I’m sure it was difficult for them to walk away from the temple that day without little Samuel by their side.   I would guess that Hannah nursed that child for as long as she possibly could!  For all we know, he was seven!  But I would be willing to bet that it was still not enough time to make saying good-bye easier.

Shortly before Frederick was born and it looked like he may not make it, I felt a desperation deep inside me.  I begged the Lord for more time with him… hours, minutes, even seconds… so I could feel him warm in my arms and know he was ours.  When we discovered at the hospital that he was no longer with us, I sobbed.  And after all these months of avoiding the question, I finally felt it with full force, “Why?? Why after all the miracles and blessings and hope we have received over the last year, why now?  Why would you not let me have him for just a few minutes?” I admit, I was – and still am – a little mad. 

But in quiet moments when I really want to know the truth- when my emotions are so exhausted and empty that they don’t interfere with my connection to God, Isaiah's words comes to mind, “For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee…  Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands…” (Isaiah 49:15-16, 2 Nephi 21: 15-16). This imagery makes it so clear to me that the Lord has not forgotten us.  Besides the physical markers I bear of Frederick’s time on earth- the new vericose veins I have or the milk I have for him that he will never drink -I have a connection with this child that I can never ever forget.  If the Lord loves us like that, then I know he will not forget us now.  If he loves us like a woman loves “her sucking child,” then I feel great peace knowing He is cradling us in the arms of his love and consoling us, even though we may not realize it. 

When I held this small baby in my arms and saw how delicate his body was, I realized two things.  First, I realized how painful and hard it would have been to live in that body.  I do not know if I could have watched my sweet little boy struggle and cry in pain for moments before he passed on.  Would that have been better than having him pass peacefully in the womb?  Secondly, I realized what a miracle it was that he lived as long as he had.  We had those months I had been promised.  I think he felt my embrace as I rubbed and cradled my belly.  I’m sure he loved every minute of the kids hugging my belly and talking to him inside.  He must have loved hearing story time and listening to us pray for him every day.  We love him as much as we would have if we had had him for those few precious moments outside my body.  He is a part of me- of us- and we will never forget him.  I think he’s serving the Lord now… that like Hannah, we have turned him over to God.  When I think about our family home evenings, I think the other side must be a much quieter place for him to learn eternal truths.  I’m happy that we have a guy on the inside who will help our family and strengthen us.  And I’m quite sure Frederick will come to us often to teach us what we don’t know of the Lord.   Like Hannah, I’m excited for our regular visits to the temple when I may be able to catch glimpses of him and his growth in the years to come.  We are grateful for every moment we had him with us.  We wait hopefully, gratefully, desperately, for more time to hold him and we feel with surety that it will come. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”