Around the Anniversaries Come, Always Arriving on Time

I’m thankful these days for the anniversaries. Five years ago, we had no idea what was coming at dawn, and we certainly didn’t know it would come with mourning.

After the pain of grief is gone, there is a sweet reasonableness in the arrival of anniversaries that mark precious remembrances that deepen appreciation for life.

But it never changes the reality; what was lost is lost for all time. The baby we lost to stillbirth was still a baby who was part of our lives for the eight months we knew of his existence, and though he was stillborn, as I was reminded today, he was still born. It still happened. We still knew him. He still had character. And we were still blessed to know him for such a limited time.

I have learned to appreciate with acceptance the anniversaries as they’ve arrived. They’re always timely, as remembrance is now the cherished compensation for our loss that endures. Each of these remembrances is, as the days are, so different, like shards of reality, and as distance greets the dimension of time, a variegated nostalgia is added. And the course for healing continues.

And yet there is the undeniable fact that there is something missing in our lives; there is a ‘someone’ missing from our lives. But he’s there every time I go into a kindergarten class. He has given me, my son, and a dear friend, strength. His memory reminds me of a painful season compounded by another tragic thread of losses that most people that were close to us have no idea about. But most importantly, God used Nathanael to teach me so much about the nature of life, loss and love.

As I think about this week, the first of the anniversaries of that time, I think of that ill-fated Tuesday morning when a stormfront drifted in nonchalantly enough to catch us out, saturating us in numbness that resonated for days. It was the first of a series of fronts that bashed our reality and crashed our hope. And yet, due faith, the very hope that seemed dashed simply grew in the nature of hope that, in love, never fails.

June 26th, July 1st, July 18th, August 12th, September 1st, September 4th, September 8th, October 4th-8th, October 29th, October 30th, and every day from that day until November 7th (Nathanael’s funeral); and several dates beyond. And in between all these dates there are random memories that intercede.

Not all these dates are great. In fact, most of these dates involved varying degrees of devastation and trauma. But there is the witness of healing as I gaze back from the safety of God’s Presence, and indeed the antithesis of what could and would meet my countenance and overwhelm me.

As the cycle of anniversaries approaches, I’m given to the thought that this season of the year is no longer the hell it was. It is now more of a heavenly that God promised from the beginning. As I look at my wife, the person who carried our son so lovingly, diligently and faithfully, I’m so blessed to have experienced this with her; the highest and lowest of times we’ve had the honour of sharing with each other.

So much of life has changed in these intervening five years—three of which were the toughest we could have imagined. And yet, had it not been for these years that stretched us, we would not have known of the faithfulness of God to get us through.