‘I know we’ll see her again’

How does a fully formed, healthy baby just slip away, back into the arms of Jesus, and her vigilant mother not know it? 

I had failed. God had failed. I was being punished. David deserved better. He should have a wife who could give him children. 

Grief is an unwelcome, foreign agent. We weren’t created to die, so it’s like our bodies, our minds, our hearts don’t know what to do with it. 

“(W)e who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.”   — Hebrews 6:18-20, New Living Translation

Even now, 20 years later, I still don’t understand.

But I know I didn’t fail. God didn’t fail. I wasn’t being punished. That’s not who God is. I don’t know why — as if any “why” would make it all OK, make it all make sense. 

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I know we now have a unique perspective of sorts and have been able to sincerely empathize with countless mamas and daddies ever since. I know it could’ve been much worse in so many ways. 

I know the odds are against marriages that experience the death of a child — and that David and I grew closer because of our shared loss. I know we probably wouldn’t have our beautiful, special, unique lights of Mackenna and Jonathan if she’d stayed. 

I know God is love, and this wasn’t “his will.” I know she’s the lucky one to not have to ever experience heartbreak, sadness, all the heaviness of existing, and to have only ever known warmth and love. 

I know we are incredibly fortunate for all we have — and for what hasn’t happened to us. 

I know that this life isn’t it. I know all will be made new again someday, that all will be as it originally was. 

I know we’ll see her again. 

Her name is Hope. 

And we are beyond thankful for her.

Amy Cady and her husband, David, serve the Wellspring Fellowship Church of Christ in Waipahu, Hawaii. Their first child, Hope, died in utero after a complicated pregnancy and was delivered by cesarean section on Jan. 10, 1999. The Cadys have two more children, Mackenna and Jonathan, both teenagers and active in ministry. 

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