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Note: This post does not contain photos, but talks plainly about death, including infant death (not mine; I’m still pregnant). If this topic is too much for you, please skip this post and come back later ;)
Five years ago today, my grandmother joined the chorus of heaven. I was with many family members at the hospital for hours as she slowly drifted away from the internal bleeding in her brain caused by a fall. I don’t remember touching her after she passed, but I remember the moment I realized I was in the presence of her shell, not her soul.
It meant she could see now (she had been legally blind for several years). It meant she was free from the pain of arthritis, old shoulder injuries, and cat scratches. It meant she was healed from fatigue, memory loss, and the toll that aging can take on the human body. She was instantly whole, healthy, and strong. If I believe some of the stories we read about living people who have, for a few moments, visited heaven, I will add that she was also young and vibrant again, in the prime of her life.
A friend recently recommended the book, “Heaven is For Real,” which tells the story of a little boy who had been very ill, and after his recovery, begins to tell his family about things he experienced “in heaven.” A poignant moment from “heaven” was his meeting a man who introduced himself to the little boy as his great grandfather. Back on earth, when he told his family, they tried showing the boy photos of this man, whom he had never met. The boy would say, “No, that’s not him. He wasn’t old.” When they finally brought out a photo of the great grandfather in his youth, thirty, strong, healthy, the boy pointed and said, “Yes! That’s him!”
Yesterday evening I had the heart-wrenching privilege of photographing an infant who was stillborn.
I volunteer for a non-profit called Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep. The organization connects professional photographers with hospitals and families. When a baby is stillborn, or is born with problems such that it will never leave the hospital, except to be buried, NILMDTS photographers volunteer their services to capture images of the baby. Often, these are the only images the family will have of this tiny member of their family who left them too soon.
The last phone call I received to volunteer, I was unavailable. But just the phone call was enough to send me into a spasm of tears. “Hi Joy, this is N. from Methodist Hospital. I was calling to see if you were available to take photographs. We have a baby we’re going to be taking off life support this afternoon.” I was at work, and they couldn’t wait for me to get off work, so they looked for another photographer instead. But when I hung up the phone, I lost it. To put myself in the shoes of those parents. To take their baby off life support. To hold him while he breathes his last. I can’t even imagine.
It took me several days of raw weeping and aching emptiness to emotionally process JUST that phone call, during which time I began to doubt myself. How would I hold it together, cope, at a session I was supposed to capture? How would I even take photos and not just melt into a puddle of sorrow for this dear family and this dear child? Honestly, I think having to work through those emotions THEN, prepared me up for my experience last night.
It was just me, a nurse, and the baby, in a separate room from the family. His body was fully developed, he had curly hair, and perfectly shaped features. Most of his skin was a bright, rosy pink, and tender just like you would expect from a newborn. The images of his little hands, feet, ears, and body cuddled in a tiny christening outfit were just as precious as any newborn I’ve photographed. His body was soft and poseable, like a doll. Parts of his body were discolored or misshapen, and not photographable, but it was minimal in comparison to what was perfect (and much better than I expected based what I had been told about the baby’s condition in advance).
It probably sounds more morbid than it felt. Our bodies are just our shell. On earth, they seem like the only part of us that is really “real”, but that is far from the spiritual truth. As the nurse and I gently worked with his body, I pictured him already in heaven, about four or five years old, running and laughing in sunny fields surrounded by other children.
Another story from the book, “Heaven is For Real,” is when the little boy tells his mom that he met his sister in heaven. The mom, a little freaked out, reminded him that his sister was still here on earth, living. “No mom,” he insisted, “It was a different girl. She told me she was my sister. She said she died when she was still in your belly.” The mom gasped, because her first pregnancy had miscarried, but she and her husband were the only ones who knew about the miscarriage that would have been his older sibling. Last night, photographing this precious boy, I remembered that story.
I can’t share details of this family’s story, or any photographs I captured, due to privacy agreements. The images will be edited and mailed on disc to the family with a copyright release, and that is all. But hopefully it is more than “all”; it is meaningful.
When I heard about NILMDTS from another photographer, I was inspired to join by the experience of an acquaintance of mine. She is the sister of one of my close friends. Her journey through infertility had been long and hard, so it was tragic to lose her triplet boys (conceived through in vitro) too early to survive. The good news is she recently delivered healthy twin girls.
She came to visit her sister (my friend), some months after the loss of the triplets. We sat together at our kitchen table, and she showed me a photo book she had put together of the triplets. Images that had been taken when some of them were already passed, some were alive, but the only images she would ever have of them. At the hospital, she took the time to hold each one in the hours after they were delivered. The one who was born alive, she held for the short hour he had breath. Her husband or friends took the pictures for her, and they were so precious to her. After hearing about NILMDTS, I thought how precious those images were to her, and how special it would be for a professional photographer to capture images like that for a grieving family.
Now my favorite thing to photograph, hands down, is natural birth. It’s why I started a birth photography business. It's why I would practically photograph natural birth for free every single day if I thought that was the best use of my time and life! Birth, especially after a hard, natural labor, is the most incrediculous, unbelievable, joyful occasion I have ever witnessed. Every. Time.
Every time except the ones where joy turns to despair. Where the momma suffers through a difficult birth, and instead of laughter, her face becomes ashen grief. Again, I can’t even imagine.
So a bit of my heart that is eager to celebrate the most amazing moment on earth, is also with families who are experiencing the most tragic moment on earth. That is why I could make it through last night.
I don’t know how anyone does this without God though. The hope of heaven is all that can truly sustain my eyes as they witness a tiny motionless form, and steady my hands as they gently position lifeless limbs.
God. Heaven. Hope.
The hope of a God in Heaven who cares.
Who holds that child tenderly, patiently, for someday when he will – living – meet his parents – also living – in the presence of a thousand other children and families who have gone before. Grieving without the presence of God, now that must truly be devastating.
What motivation to give His hope to others.
For Life.
For Death.
For Life After Death.
For Everlasting.