Healing by Helping

 Heads up that this post contains the death of an infant. It's also a long and difficult but beautiful story.  It testifies of God's love for all, the way He connects us with others and how He strengthens us to serve in difficult ways. 

Years ago I had a young friend I will call Kim who I met at church when she was a girl.  She didn't come more than a few times but I had a special place in my heart for her. I would go out of my way to stop at the various fast food restaurants she worked at and she always had a cheerful hello.  

A year or so after she graduated,  following a prompting, I reconnected with her on facebook and was saddened to learn that her first child, born that year, had only lived a few days. My heart hurt for her and as I introduced her to visiting teachers and reached out to her in genuine friendship we became closer. 

I shared her celebration when she announced with great excitement that she and her husband were expecting again. 

I also shared her anguish when at 20 weeks she learned that what they had been told was a 1 in a million chance, had just hit for the second time in their family and this new baby had the same genetic condition as his brother. 

I fasted and prayed for the best and joined her at her baby shower. Her husband's congregation of another faith were some of the kindest, most welcoming people I had ever met.  

Then one Friday she had her baby. She called and asked if I would come and see him. I had planned to drive the 95 miles on Saturday, but she said he wasn't doing well and may not live long. Could I come then and bring my camera so that this time she could have pictures of her son while he was living? 

My heart was breaking for her and I scrambled to find someone to watch the little girls and then picked up my sweet friend and visiting teaching partner,  and we headed to the same hospital at which she had found out she had lost her own son and at which I had watched Ella fight for her life for 3.5 months. I knew that it was taking all of my friend's reserves to bravely set foot back into those painful memories.  I also knew there was great strength in her being by my side. The Lord sends us in pairs for a reason. 

The rain came in torrents and it seemed even the heavens were weeping as we navigated the interstate traffic. I don't remember anything we  said. 

Driving into the parking lot, even though it had been seven years, I felt the anxiety building in my stomach at the unknown waiting inside those doors. Every step through the lobby and past the desk seemed harder, but we also knew we had to hurry. 

Kim's husband pushed her out in a wheelchair and tears of gratitude fell as we accompanied her back through the NICU doors to see her precious baby boy. 

Scrubbing in I could smell the alcohol based soap and thought of tiny Ella- for that is still the smell I associate with her first few years. 

Stepping into the family lounge I felt like I had been punched in the stomach and suddenly I could very vividly remember seeing the doctors resuscitating Ella and having my wheelchair abruptly turned around and being pushed into that lounge and left alone. How could it be so real after seven years? 

But then I took a deep breath and pushed my own experiences aside. This was not about me, but Kim and her own very real nightmare. 

As we approached the bed side I was very tentative. Would I handle it right? What would I say? I knew the baby had serious birth defects. What would I think? How could I help her? Could I be strong enough? I whispered yet another prayer and I held tighter to my camera and then looked into the isolette and my heart absolutely melted. 

Her beautiful baby boy with the dark curls was an angel. His little chest wasn't big enough for his lungs, and his arms and legs were shorter than usual but he was a precious baby boy - their son! I reached out and gently stroked his soft cheek. I absorbed the beeps and whirrs of the NICU, and constant wooshing of his oscillating ventilator like an old pro. 

I hugged Kim again and told her how beautiful he was. I quietly asked the nurse if I could begin taking photos if I left the flash off. She said yes and after a few minutes she said she had never seen a photographer so at ease in that setting and asked it I had been there before. I simply nodded and then went to work snapping shots of him from every angle, trying in vain to document every precious inch of baby S so his mom and dad would have something to remember him by. 

Tears ran down my cheeks as I saw the numbers on the monitor. Unfortunately I knew all too well what those meant.

 "How does he look?" she asked me with so much hope and pleading in her eyes. "Gorgeous." I said. "He has your nose and R's hair." 

We left the hospital two hours later with the baby "a bit more stable." 

The drive home seemed a bit unreal. I picked up my girls at 11 pm and took them home and tucked them lovingly into bed. 

Once they were asleep I simply stood in their doorway for several minutes overwhelmed with gratitude for all I have and pain and sorrow for my friends. 

Saturday we were watching the morning session of Conference and listening to messages on Christ like service and reaching out to one another. 

Kim texted me. The baby wasn't doing so well. She said she would check in later.

Between sessions I had a photo shoot scheduled. It was a beautiful sunny Autumn day and I recognized the contrast of this family's joy at finally being together after a prolonged separation. 

I thought of Kim and R. and how they were preparing to begin their own prolonged separation; again. 

As I was finishing Kim called me sobbing that he had taken a drastic turn for the worse. Could I come now and be with her when they had to unplug him from life support? 

My heart seemed to stop all together. 

I couldn't do this. I didn't know what to do. I felt totally unprepared and inadequate as I in anguish looked heavenward and asked my Heavenly Father, "You really want me to do this?" 

It seemed too hard. Instead I heard myself say, "I will be there as fast as I possibly can." 

I cut the photo shoot short and jumped in the car, calling my companion to meet me as I headed northward. 

The drive seemed interminably slow, in spite of the beautiful weather. As I approached the hospital I got the call. "He is slipping away." 

I grabbed my camera and we bolted from the car and rushed up to the third floor. We arrived to find her precious angel had just taken his last breaths. 

We cried together and held him and oohed and aahed over his beauty again. I helped dress him and took many more pictures, this time with no obtrusive ventilators or wires and tubes. Just two young parents completely in love with their beautiful son. 

We became very in tune with the Spirit and began to address each tiny need that would become obvious to us. Little things really. Shifting her chair, handing drinks, gently caressing the tiny lifeless body, quietly giving funeral home information to the nurse. 

It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. It was also one of the greatest privileges I have ever known and I am grateful to God for helping me to be an instrument in his hand. 

We cried a thousand tears and my heart still to this day hurts so much for them. But I also grew closer to my Savior as I walked in his footsteps and "mourned with those who mourned".

There is no magic formula to follow.  We will get it wrong a lot.  But we still need to try. It's what we have covenanted to do.  

Mosiah 18:8-9

"...and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;

Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—"

Like everything else in this life we will get better at it as we practice.  

We will learn to push our own experiences aside and focus on the tiny needs of the moment. 

We will learn to focus on the Savior and reflect His love in such a way that they can't help but feel it. We will stand in awe at the profound love He feels for others and in the process it will soften some of our rough edges.  As my companion would later say, "healing can come from helping others who suffered the same pain."

And then we will find at moments of our own mourning that we know just where to turn.