Blessing

Before I begin my weekly night shift, the chaplains there in the evening come together and update me on any need-to-know cases. "There's a trauma in the ER but family hasn't arrived yet. The patient in room 100 would like a prayer this evening if you have time. There's a man in surgery now whose wife is an RN here, she's very upset, please check in with her." Things like this and so many other situations get passed along usually giving me a check list to go through before settling in for the night.

Recently, at nightly report, I was told this, "You will probably be called to the Mother-Baby unit tonight. There's a pregnant mom who came in yesterday for her first ultra sound, and everything was fine. This morning she started bleeding, came to the ER, and found out that her baby has died en-utero. She's been induced for labor and says she wants her baby blessed after delivery."

I have to be honest, this is not the kind of referral I look forward to. Baby deaths in the past have been difficult for me. (Read one account here, and how I coped with it here.) However, I have grown as a professional chaplain and matured as a person to the point where, pregnant women and acute compounded grief over loss of a child don't scare me. I am now able to enter their space, sense their pain, and minister within it.

Sure enough, later that night the pager erupted. The baby blessing was requested. This is not my first blessing of an infant, alive or dead, and I haven't done many. But, I must say, as sad as they can be, I really love doing them. In preparation, I grabbed a small plastic heart shaped container that has a little lid (about the size of a 3-liter bottle cap), put in it a cotton ball and poured some anointing oil over it. I took with me a certificate of blessing and one of those crempy sealer things like notaries use to make the certificate feel official.

Entering the room I saw mom, holding her darling deceased baby that weighted about a pound. She was staring at his beautiful tiny wrinkled face as if she was looking into her entire universe. Her dad, grandpa, was quietly sitting nearby. We talked for a few moments but mostly gazed at the little guy who never had a fair shot at life. Mom had already cried so much she was temporarily out of tears and in a sacred and serene place of wonder as she imagined what might have been but now never will be.

She told me his name and why she chose it. Naming helps the grieving process for parents so much as a way to connect with and honor the life that was lost. She had taken pictures of him and dressed him, things parents do, and she would do it for her son, even if only once.

I brought with me a short "service" of blessing for a baby. We prayed together, I read a few words about how God loves this child who is a member of the family, and we heard a short passage from Matthew about Jesus and children. Making the sign of the cross on the little tyc's forehead with oil on my finger was so special. It was heartbreaking and endearing. It makes me sad to have to do one of these blessings, but I so enjoy being able to walk with parents through this process of caring for their deceased child and honoring his life with ritual.

The room that night was a sacred space. Her love for her son is what sanctified that sterile hospital room making it a sanctuary for God's love, expressed by a broken mother with dreams shattered who saw nothing but beauty in the tiny motionless eyes and translucent fingers of her son. I pray that in time her heart will mend.

Jesus said, "Leave the children alone, and don't try to keep them from coming to me, because the Kingdom of heaven is made up of people like this." After he put his hands on them, he went on from there. Matthew 19:45-15