The Human Heart

When I was a three year old little girl, my mommy was pregnant with a baby. She was really sick of course, just in the beginning. I remember carefully tiptoeing down the long hall of my house, and climbing into bed next to my mommy as she lay there, faint and nauseous. I would get out the cotton balls and rub her all over with cotton. To make her feel better, I'd say. Her arms, her face, her neck. Then one evening, she felt a little better! She was able to eat all her dinner, and even got up out of bed and walked around the house a little.

That night she suffered a miscarriage.

A couple years later when she was pregnant with my little brother, she was so worried that same thing would happen again. So she fervently prayed every day that the baby would be healthy, that his bones would be straight and his heart strong. And Heavenly Father sent her my brother: who grew to be 6'6" and about as strong and healthy as you can be. A sure blessing.

One year we received a Christmas card with three little girls on the front, pulling a little blonde boy in a sled. My mom said it was like us, if she hadn't lost that baby in between James and I. I don't know if the baby was a boy or a girl or what its name would have been or what it would have been like. But I do know it is my little brother or sister, and he or she is waiting in Heaven to meet us all.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the human heart and its capacity for love.

My sister and her family came down to visit a couple weeks ago. Morning sickness plagued her entire being, papaya nectar and sherbet ice-cream were her staples. Last Wednesday was my 29th Birthday. My little family was sick all week with icky fevers and throwing up. And then on my birthday, my sister lost her little baby. She was about 10 weeks along. She had an awful time of it, and we were terribly worried about her all day. My parents packed their bags and went to be with her and her family.

It's interesting how we all loved this little baby, even though we had never seen it or held it, and had only known about it for a few shorts weeks. Even so, this baby had become a part of our lives already; the children were all excited for a baby to join the family. When we told James and Anna that Aunt Kristen's baby had died in her tummy, they asked why? Why does that happen?

And I don't know. It is Heavenly Father's way of doing things. He gives, and he takes away. But luckily, He gave us these human hearts that are capable of loving, grieving, and then healing.

Easter came at the close of our yucky week, and I thought about how it was sort of ironic. We love where we cannot see or touch, much in the same way that we love our Savior, Jesus Christ. We cannot see him or touch him, but we know He exists. He gave his life for us and atoned for our sins, making it possible for each of us to return to our Father in Heaven some day.

Where hopefully we will get to meet the babies that were so special and so wonderful, they didn't have to endure this world to make it to the next.