Cracked Roots & Roses 18: Getting ready to go fishing

After getting home from the hospital, I was put on antidepressants to deal with the loss of my son. I would sit on the couch for one half of the day, sleep the other half, and cry in between. Life was miserable. I was physically sore from giving birth and being engorged. My face had cystic acne, and I could no longer remember what it was like to be with the Lord. I didn’t look or feel like my old self, but none of that mattered because I was someone else entirely.

The new me couldn’t look at baby stuff. I couldn’t walk through the baby department in stores for about two years. I couldn’t hear that anyone was pregnant or had just had a baby. I was triggered by anything baby-related and was now on a mission to have a baby. I took pregnancy tests almost weekly, and every time I saw that negative result, I sank deeper into despair. I just needed to have another baby to prove to myself that I could.

It didn’t work. I have never been able to get pregnant again. I was too much of a coward to get the official word on it from the doctors. So I pushed it away and told myself one child was enough. I wish I knew then what I know now, but that’s all water under the bridge—hindsight, you know? I still couldn’t shake the “why?” What was the purpose?

I also didn’t know what to do with God. I no longer felt that enveloping love I once had. People would offer me words of sympathy. I would listen, but there was an underlying disdain that would creep up. I didn’t want to hear any flowery words. I didn’t want to hear about any grand plan or that everything has a purpose. I was mad. I was indifferent. I held an indictment against God in my heart for what happened to my little boy.

I couldn’t understand it. I went to church every Sunday and Wednesday. I read the Bible every day. I was a giver. I told people about Him. I prayed. I did all the religious things, and I needed to know WHY.

This was one of those thin places in life. My emotions were all over the place, and all I wanted was to be with my son. I wanted the world to stop spinning. I wanted to get off. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t hearing from God. I was in the wilderness after being so high just a year or so ago.

Things couldn’t get worse—but they did.

In that season, I decided I needed to go back to my old life. Today, I think about Peter. After the crucifixion of Jesus, Peter said, “I’m going fishing.” That was Peter trying to return to his old life. This new thing hadn’t worked; it was too painful. So he tried to go back to his old life as a fisherman. However, his old life was gone—remember? The Bible says he caught nothing.

I was now attempting to leave God alone. I didn’t want to bother Him. I wanted to live like I did before the dream. I was somewhat content in my ignorance of His existence. I continued to go to church out of sheer habit. I went up for prayer every Sunday, but I still couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t get the spirit of death and heaviness off of me. I was indifferent towards everyone and everything.

My doctor urged me to get counseling. During my six-week checkup, he said something that I thought was odd: “Eighty percent of marriages end in divorce after the loss of a baby. Please get help.” I thought that was ridiculous—until it wasn’t.

I was hanging on by a thread, but there was one person who kept me going: Ahmad from the dealership.

Every day while I was home, he would have Marilyn call me and give him the phone. I worked with Marilyn at the front desk. She knew we had a friendship, so she had no problem calling me for him. He wanted to see if I was okay or needed something to eat. He was funny, so he would try his best to make me laugh before getting off the phone.

Flowers were sent to my house every other day while I was recovering for about ten days. The cards attached were vague sympathy wishes with no signature, but I knew the flowers came from Ahmad. He was the only person I knew who would spend money like that on flowers.

Ahmad was the new star salesperson at the dealership. He was a year older than me, tall, medium complexion, with a low beard and haircut. Think young Marvin Gaye with a bigger smile. He was a businessman with property, luxury cars, great cologne, and was always in dress shoes and slacks. When he started at the dealership, I was about two months pregnant.

He was quiet but quickly made his presence known by selling three to four cars a day. This earned him reverence and respect. During downtime, the salespeople would stand around the front desk waiting for customers. It was during those times I would have conversations with him about Jesus, politics, and history.

Ahmad was a non-active Black Hebrew Israelite, and his father was a Muslim. We would go back and forth about the Bible during breaks. I didn’t respect what he believed, but I respected him as a person. He was well-versed in the Bible but misguided. I spoke with anyone willing to listen about Jesus—he was no different in my eyes.

I thought it was nice that he sent flowers, but it became suspicious when he sent them every other day.

After the death of our son, Jeremy didn’t take any time off work, and he refused to talk about what happened. I needed to talk—just to say how perfect our son was or to reason out what happened. Jeremy wouldn’t.

We both mourned separately and in our own ways—I’m speculating because nothing he did looked like mourning. He picked up as usual with shooting pool and bowling. I was not okay.

If you’ve never been in this position, you wouldn’t understand. At the time, my daughter was about five, and one day she asked, “When will the baby be home?” I stared at her briefly, then ran to the bedroom, closed the door, and cried.

Jeremy came in and yelled at me to straighten up. He said that our daughter didn’t understand what happened, and I was being selfish. I don’t know if he was right or not. All I knew was that my son was dead, and I didn’t know how to straighten up.

Jeremy began to question the flowers. He hadn’t gotten me a card or any flowers, so he wanted to know who they were coming from. This was the moment I could’ve altered my next season in life—but I didn’t. I lied.

I said, “They’re from the job. One is from the desk, one is from Marilyn and the girls, and the others are from the dealership. The flower shop messed up a bouquet, so they sent a new one, then another by mistake.”

If I would’ve said Ahmad was sending them, Jeremy wouldn’t have understood and would’ve confronted him at work. Jeremy was working part-time at the dealership, so he knew who Ahmad was. I didn’t want that. I wanted to continue to talk with Ahmad for a few minutes a day—he was my lifeline.

At the time, I was still fairly new in Christ. I didn’t know about trials, the valley, or angelic visitations. It wasn’t until years later that I learned about them. Later in life, I was confronted with the reality that the woman who came into my room was an angel.

Because of my ignorance, I didn’t know to ask for my baby to live. The angel said, “What do you want from the Lord?” So I answered. Angels don’t coach you on what to say. I said what I wanted. The angel touched my stomach, and my son was born within that hour. The drugs hadn’t even had a chance to digest yet. I had just been admitted.

I don’t dwell too long on this because it’s mine—it’s very personal to me.