The First Mother's Day

I tried to write this story last year just before Mother’s Day and I couldn’t. This will be the first Mother’s Day where I get to hold one of my babies. It will be the first Mother’s Day where I will be able to experience joy, not just tears. It is also going to be extra special because my mom will be here with me to celebrate as well.   

When I was pregnant with Raffael, I remember thinking about holidays and special events that were just over the horizon. My birthday, Passover, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. I remember thinking about how it would feel to blow out my birthday candles with our baby boy in my arms, and how it would feel to wake up on Mother’s Day for the first time not as a daughter, sister, or friend, but as a mama to my very own baby. Just the thought of those upcoming moments would fill me with so much excitement and anticipation.

Those visions didn’t come to fulfillment and when I reached the horizon and looked over it, it was black.

Every light inside the home of my heart was out.

There wasn’t joy. There wasn’t expectation. All the old dreams, ideas, and visions were gone. Rooms that were ready to receive were now empty. Doors closed, shades drawn.

Silence. Isolation. Darkness.

We said goodbye to Raffa, then eleven days later it was my birthday. It may sound odd but I still don’t know how old I was that day.

Shortly after, Michael and I left our old life behind and moved into my parents house. When you don’t want to be anywhere, it’s hard to know where to be. We decided to drive to Banff for a few days. After our trip, we stopped on the way back to Penticton to visit one of the only places that still gave me a sense of peace, my Auntie Monell’s home. No matter where I go or how old I get, I still get the same overwhelming sense of expectation as I turn down the country roads that weave through the orchards, up to the horse pastures, to the gravel road that leads to my Auntie’s house.

On that particular day the sun was shining, the sky was blue, but inside my heart it was night. It was exactly one week before Mother’s Day, and as we drove I didn’t know how I was going to survive that day. Our trip to Banff had opened my eyes to what it would now be like to be an invisible mother. To have a baby, but no one knows, no one sees.

The phrase ‘No one sees’ turned over in my mind as we drove down that familiar road. On the left is a small farm and I could see horses with their babies. I love horses. I asked Michael if we could pull over so I could look at them from the fence line. I got out of the truck and walked over to the fence and rested by arms on top. Way at the back pasture I could make out the mothers grazing, with their foals playing around them. It was clear these colts and fillies were brand new. Although I couldn’t bare to see a human baby, horses I could handle.

I sat there in silence watching them. Michael was next to me in the truck, with his window rolled down, we took in the scene together. As we watched, something completely unexpected began to happen. One mare, some 200 yards away, stopped grazing, and looked right up at me. She began running directly towards me, with her baby following closely beside her. One-by-one every other mare ran right up to me with their babies. As I watched them, I was completely in awe at what I was witnessing. Once they reached me they formed a semi circle in front of me: mare, foal, mare, foal. There were seven pairs. If I was speechless then, there weren’t words for what happened next. One at a time, each mother stepped forward and brought her baby right up to the fence, as if they were introducing their babies to me. As each pair did this, tears poured down my cheeks, I looked behind at Michael to see him watching with tears streaming down his face as well. After the introductions, we sat their awestruck, watching the horses graze peacefully around us. In that moment Heaven touched earth and I felt my baby right next to me. God used a collection of horses to say “Happy Mother’s Day Raffa’s Mama”.

In Genesis 16 a slave girl named Hagar is running for her life, alone in the desert. She is scared, alone, and hopeless. I’ve walked the desert she was running through and I can attest that it is a scary place to be by yourself. It’s a place without answers, markers, or direction. Like Hagar I didn’t know whether to turn left or right, because all around me was nothing. That’s what it feels like to lose your child. In that void, when she least expected it, Hagar has an encounter with Adonai, and He asks her “Hagar, where are you going?” Then He tells her that she’s going to have a son and what the baby is to be named:

“You are to call him Yishma'el [God pays attention] because ADONAI has paid attention to your misery.”

During this intimate encounter with God, Hagar gives God one of His Names:

“So she named ADONAI who had spoken with her El Ro'i [God of seeing][…]”

Thousands of years later, I stared at a semicircle of mothers and babies before me, and I felt like Hagar. I knew I was having a direct encounter with The God Who Sees. The God who pays attention and cared about my deep anguish and misery. He is the One who chases after us when we’re running away. Through that encounter, I was reminded by Him, the One Who made me a mother, that I will always be a mother, from now and into eternity, because He made it so. I wasn’t invisible, I was seen by the Creator of the Universe, Who used His creation that day to put a salve of love on my aching heart. I felt Raffael with us in that moment, and I felt seen by a collection of horses that met me right where I was. They came to me to say, “You’re a mama, just like us.”

I’ve told this story to horse people in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Tennessee and they have all said that what those horses did that day is nothing short of miraculous. It is a mare’s nature to keep her foal away from strangers, not to bring them right up to one. But that day, I believe that the same voice that said “Let there be light!” whispered into the wind “Run to her.”. Through that act of love He lit up the deep darkness in my broken heart with His Light.

As Mother’s Day approaches I want the mothers and fathers who feel invisible in their loss, grief, and pain, to know you are not invisible. You aren’t alone when you look down at your arms and wish you were holding your child here on earth. You feel your heart beating, but the broken pieces are impossible to put back together. The chairs around your dinner table may be full but you always feel the ache for the precious one who is missing. I know what it feels like to long for Heaven while still trying to find a way to make earth your home. I don’t have the answers to why we are called to be parents to a Heavenly child, but I do know God sees you just like He saw me. I pray that in your pain and sorrow, you too will have a reminder from Him that Heaven is right beside us waiting to be revealed when we least expect it. I pray that this Mother’s Day the balm of His love washes over your heart, your longing, and your tears. I want to say to you, you will be their mom and dad from now and into eternity. It will be that way, today, tomorrow, and forever.

On dark days my mind will often wander back down that country road to that wooden fence line and remember the day I realized I was a mother. This year I hope to be standing with my baby girl in my arms and my Raffa Boy in my heart, with my mama beside me, staring at some beautiful horses. For the rest of my life I’ll remember my first Mother’s Day gift from Heaven.