The Due Date

There’s a lot that could be said about Levi’s due date, but what I find myself saying the most is that it wasn’t easy, but it was good.  Ashley said it well.  We wouldn’t be able to make memories with Levi on that day, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make memories that surround her.  We wanted to look back on Levi’s due date and be able to say that we had celebrated, or grieved, or remembered well.  And so we did.

We spent the day in Kenosha, Wisconsin, wandering along the shore between Common Grounds and the Southport Marina.  We just enjoyed each other.  It felt like fall.  I was able to feel a reality that is always true but rarely experienced: that God is near to the brokenhearted.  It was as though He was in step with us at every moment, imparting a significance and grace to everything we did.

It was sacramental.

 

I could use this post to talk about our conversations as we sipped our drinks on the deck of Common Grounds, watching the sailboats in the bay.  Or I could focus instead on the fun we had in the Kenosha Public Museum, or the great food we enjoyed at Ashling as the day started to wane.  But I think the memory that best encapsulates the beauty of Levi’s due date has to do with a certain bottle of sparkling cider.

When we were married, Ashley’s sister Courtney gave us five bottles of wine to go along with five significant milestones of a marriage: honeymoon, anniversary, etc.  We enjoyed all of them within our first year of marriage except the one set aside for celebrating our first child.  That one remained unopened.  When we lost Levi we weren’t sure what to do with that bottle of sparkling cider.  It felt wrong to drink it.  It felt wrong to leave it unopened as though we didn’t actually have a child.  How do parents who can’t parent celebrate the children they’ve lost?

We decided that because we will not be able to taste what it would be like to parent Levi that we shouldn’t be able to taste the cider either.  But on the other hand, we have a child.  We are parents.  The bottle ought to be opened.

So standing on the rocks by the Marina with the tide crashing along the shore, we poured the cider into Lake Michigan.  We emptied the bottle out entirely and watched the contents get swept away from between the rocks.  It wasn’t easy.  It felt like saying goodbye all over again.

But it was good.

 

 

We didn’t let that be the end of the story.  When we got home we used a Pinterest trick involving a shoelace dipped in acetone, a match, and a sink full of cold water to snap off the neck of the cider bottle.  It is now a candle holder for a candle that will be lit anytime we want to commemorate the child we miss so much.

As Christians we are not without hope.  Ashley and I believe that God is very familiar with death.  He tasted it when He bore our sins for us on the Cross, and He rose victorious over it three days later.  We believe that we will see our child again.   We believe that death does not win.  It doesn’t.  Jesus is as alive as you who are reading this, and this resurrection reality that we experience in part will one day be made complete when all the dead in Christ are raised, and we see the Lord.  Our grief will be redeemed, just like the bottle of cider.

It’s not easy right now.  No, it’s not.  Not for any of us.

But God will make it good.

 

 

A strange thing happened as we took one more stroll along the beach after dinner.  We came to a sidewalk leading away from a petite, green lighthouse near the Marina (As pictured above.  You readers in Kenosha may know the name of it but I don’t.)  As we walked, we realized that all across the cement barrier that runs parallel to the sidewalk were written, in chalk, quotations from Scripture about the abiding, steadfast love of God.  This cement Gospel was preached to us from the barrier, from the sidewalk, from all sides.  We stepped on John 3:16 and ran our fingers along the priestly benediction in Numbers.  Our day ended hemmed in by proclamations of the love of God.

 

 

 

Where can we go from your Spirit, Lord?  Where can we go from Your presence? And what are we that You are mindful of us, You who make all things new?  You make known to us the path of life, in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.  You have heard our plea, You accept our prayer.  And we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

 

  Forever.

-Mike