"We had a lovely daughter"

Last night was our support group's annual memorial candlelighting ceremony. It was well attended, perhaps the best-attended one we've been to in years. (There were three large wreaths with candleholders to hold people's lit candles, & they actually ran out of space.)

Four of our dearest friends from the group were there with their families. Among our five families, we have lost eight babies: four girls, two boys & two unknowns -- two miscarriages, two stillbirths, three premature births/neonatal deaths and one medical termination. We also saw several of our former clients, and other volunteers we've come to know over the past 12+ years.

For the most part, it was the same familiar ceremony in the same familiar setting from previous years, with the same familiar poems & readings. The same harpist who has donated her talents to us for this evening for so many years to provide soothing background music as we light our candles & say our babies' names. So many candles. So many babies. So many sad, grieving families -- some, like us, whose losses were years ago; some whose babies left them mere weeks ago.

And then at the end of the program, our mistress of ceremonies said she'd like to play a song for us she had discovered. I caught the name of the song -- "E.liz.abeth's So.ng" -- and the first name of the artist. He had written it, she said, for friends whose daughter had died of SIDS -- & who were deeply hurt that nobody would talk to them about their little girl or speak her name.

The opening lines were:

We had a lovely daughter
And we thought our lives fulfilled
From the moment we first held her
We loved her then, we love her still.

I had been doing fine until that point -- but within seconds, the tears were running down my face. I could see, in the row ahead of us, one of our friends, whose daughter was also stillborn, almost seven years ago now, putting her head on her husband's shoulder. I heard quiet sobs from behind me. I held dh's hand tightly and, with my other hand, took off my glasses & my fumbled in my purse for a Kleenex.

As the service ended & we were invited to share in some coffee and refreshments, I found myself facing another friend's husband -- another dad to another little girl who, eight years ago, was born prematurely & never came home. He always comes with his wife and other children to our events -- but he'd rather talk about anything except the reason why we're all together.

He looked at me, with his mouth set in a line & pain in his eyes, & said, simply and wonderingly, "So -- it's still hard."

"That song was a killer, wasn't it?" I said. "Let's go get some coffee." And we did.

As soon as I got into work this morning, I did some Googling. And I found the full lyrics, and the singer's website.

I think that song will stay with me for a long time.

We had a lovely daughter.

We thought our lives fulfilled...