Last week I took my mother to All Saints Cemetery to visit my fathers grave. While we were there she asked if I’d mind stopping at the grave of the daughter of one of her friends. This little girl died when she was five, back in the 70′s.
We got out of the car and I noticed that these grave sites were not like the others. They all belonged to children. They had lambs, and toys and teddy bears on them. My mom explained that this was the area of the cemetery reserved for children and infants.
I began looking at the headstones and saw that many of them only had one date. This meant that the baby had died on the same day that it was born. Some of them had no first name, just "Baby". I wondered if these were miscarriages. When my son’s girlfriend miscarried last New Year, the hospital told us that since it was a Catholic hospital, the babies remains would be buried on sacred ground. They gave us the option of a headstone. My son and his girlfriend opted out of that, but we were very comforted by the fact that this little one would receive a true burial on Holy ground. No one at the hospital however, was able to tell me at which cemetery these babies were being buried. Now seeing these little graves, I wondered if it was here, at the same cemetery my in which my father is buried.
I saw a woman, sitting on a grave, praying a rosary, and felt so moved that I went up to her. She was happy to share her story. She was 40 years old, with three children over the age of 16. She found herself pregnant last year, and after the initial shock, was elated to think she would once again be a mother. Her husband was ecstatic. He was hoping for a girl.
At four months into the pregnancy, she miscarried a little girl. Her husband was devastated. I keep picturing this big, tough, Hispanic man, brought to his knees with grief, over a four month old "fetus".
Their baby died in June of 2008, and this woman, who works across the street at another Catholic Hospital, visits the graveside every day. Her husband has never come, saying it is too painful. Her sister also has a baby buried there. She, like my son, opted not to get a headstone and has no idea where her little one is buried. The first woman, named her little girl Amanda. She has placed a small heart where the baby’s body would be and this is what she sits on when she visits and prays her rosary. Her sister placed a solar light on the grave, so Amanda wouldn’t be afraid in the dark.
There is a tree in this section of the cemetery, and people have placed dozens of wind chimes, toys and ornaments on it. I imagine the little ones hearing the music they play when the wind blows.
The point of this post, is to illustrate how these little lives have touched the people who love them…so much so, that some of the graves are 20 or 30 years old and they still have fresh flowers on them. Someone still comes. Someone still cares. These babies are the same age as the 4,000 that will be killed here in our country today. The same age as the 50,000,000 that have been killed since 1973. No one remembers them. No one places flowers on their graves. No one placed a headstone that said "Brother, son, daughter…We’ll miss you". No one cares.
I care.
I remember.
Thank you Amanda, for reminding me .
AMANDA’S GRAVE…
SOME WITH NO OFFICIAL HEADSTONES. THESE ARE BABIES LOST TO MISCARRIAGES.
THIS WAS A NEWLY BURIED BABY…NOTICE HOW SMALL THE LITTLE GRAVE IS.
HERE IS THE TREE…
AND HERE IS A MONUMENT PUT UP IN THE CENTER OF THEM ALL…
- In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost. Matthew 18:14
This post was submitted by MK.
Wow, what an amazing story. Thanks for sharing. So sad that these mothers who loved for and cared about this child lost it and had to suffer the pain of Miscarriage when their are so many babies lost be fore birth that never knew what it was liked to be loved.