How could I have imagined that on this bright, crisp morning I would leave my house blissfully fat and pregnant, only to return two days later empty and shattered? A little more than halfway through my pregnancy, I woke up with what I thought were only cramps. I wasn’t especially worried. In fact, when my husband suggested we go to the hospital just to be safe, I tried to convince him that I was fine and could wait until Monday to see my doctor. We had finally gotten settled into the new house, and that Sunday there were NFL playoffs I didn’t want him to miss. He was exhausted from the move and deserved a day off, and I knew even a “quick trip” to the ER could turn into hours. I simply didn’t believe it was necessary.

I thought about calling my parents, but decided not to worry them. I truly believed everything was fine, and I didn’t want to wake them unnecessarily. By the time we reached the hospital, however, my pain was steadily getting worse. We waited nearly an hour to be seen. Around 9 a.m., I finally asked Pete to call my parents, figuring they were probably awake by then and that we should at least keep them in the loop. He never actually spoke to them. An aunt who was visiting took the message instead. Pete told her what was happening, asked her to let them know, and assured her that everything was probably fine and we would call when we got home.

While Pete was on the phone, I went to the restroom. No sooner had the door shut behind me than I knew something was really wrong. As I walked back toward him, I collapsed in the lobby and was rushed into the ER. Meanwhile, despite my insistence that there was no reason to panic, my parents had already left their house just a few miles away and were on their way to the hospital.

Ten minutes later—and less than two minutes before I delivered her—my mother found her way into my room. She stood beside me holding my right hand while Pete held my left, and there between them Gina Marie, our precious baby girl, graced us with her brief but powerful presence. She was 9 inches long and weighed just over a pound.

The few hours she lived were the longest of my life. There are no words big enough for that kind of anguish. The baby I had prayed for desperately—literally on my hands and knees—had been torn from my womb, and now I held her tiny body in my arms. She kept trying to hold on to my finger, but her hand was too small to grasp it. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I watched helplessly as she gasped for air and struggled to stay, and then I watched her take her very last breath.

For a very long time, I searched for a single good thing that could possibly have come from so much heartache and trauma, because it is something I will truly never understand. But this much I know: there in that otherwise frigid hospital room, racked with grief and agony in the darkest hours of my life, I had never felt so completely loved. I was surrounded by the people I loved most, each of them loving me in the best way they knew how. My husband, who had already been through so much to bring that little girl into my life and who, despite my best efforts to push him away, had never physically left my side. My father, who despite his shortcomings and our many battles, loved me in the best way he knew how—and who I know would have traded his life for my daughter’s in that moment. My sister, my one true and unconditional rock, on her hands and knees at the foot of my bed, sobbing for a pain she would have taken from me if she could. And, of course, my beautiful mother, who has loved me all the days of my life and whom I was blessed to have beside me when each of my children came into this world—and then again when one of them left it.

As for God? At the time, I couldn’t exactly “feel” Him. But every shred of my being knows He was in that room with me, leaving His footprints in my sand. He was weeping as He held me while I wept and held her, as she died in my arms during the most bittersweet moment of my life. After all those years of praying for a baby, I’d gotten an angel instead. It would take me years to make any kind of peace with having to bury my own child, but eventually I came to understand that her death was really nothing at all. She would spend both of our eternities watching me through her supernova telescope, and the pain of losing her would one day become one of my greatest gifts of all.

HELLO, GOODBYE

Where’s the Navigator of your destiny? Where is the Dealer of this hand? Who can explain life and its brevity, ’cause there is nothing here that I can understand. You and I have barely met, and I just don’t want to let go of you yet. Noah, hello, good-bye. I’ll see you on the other side. Noah, sweet child of mine. I’ll see you on the other side. And so I hold your tiny hand in mine for the hardest thing I’ve ever had to face. Heaven calls for you before it calls for me. When you get there save me a place. A place where I can share your smile and I can hold you for more than just awhile. Noah, I’ll see you on the other side. {Michael W. Smith}