Today could have been the day

Last summer I learned about a baby who was on the way.

“When are you due?” I asked the expectant mom.

“January 5,” she told me.

She wasn’t far along, and she told me so I could pray. And I did, of course. Praying for a new little life is always such an honor. In a beautiful way, you get to be part of this child’s story from some of their earliest days. I love being entrusted with wonderful baby news. What a gift to get to carry a little bit of the expectant joy of the parents-to-be.

As I prayed, I hoped everything would be fine, and that the baby would continue to grow and thrive. Hopefully the mother and her husband would be holding a new baby early in the new year.

But, just a few weeks later, we learned the baby had passed away.

It’s not my first time grieving with someone I love who has lost a baby. There is always so much sadness. And I always think of our nephew Georgie and our little great-niece who was also stillborn and so many other babies—named and unnamed—that I’ve prayed for over the years. These little lives become part of my daily prayers, and you never really forget them.

Today is January 5. And if everything had gone well, that baby would have been top on our minds today. The baby might be a newborn. We might still be waiting for word that this new little child had arrived. Or today might have been that baby’s birthday.

And so today I’m thinking of that little baby—and their family. I wish this were a different kind of day, but there is a reminder in all of this, too. Because tomorrow is never promised to any of us, not the young and not the old. Our time on earth is fleeting. Life is so very precious. And we are here to accompany one another—those on earth and those in heaven. What an honor and joy it is to know we are all connected, all part of one large community.

“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us,” St. Augustine said. So very true.

That baby was—and is—cherished and treasured and remembered. And so is each of us, created for a reason, loved infinitely, and held in the hands of God today and for all eternity.

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