New Baby in Heaven

This painting remembers the four babies I have miscarried. The baby being carried by the angel is John, who I lost between Max and Quinn, and the children running to meet them are Catherine (girl on the right), Francis (boy on the left), and Fortunata (girl in the middle).

Your grief changes when you have children after loss. The little people your arms ached to hold are now a reality and you delight in every moment all the more for that season of pain. But you also can’t help but think of the babies that never got to be born, and you wonder what they would have been like. I see how totally unique and amazing my three living kids are and I know that I would love my four Heaven-side children just as much. It’s a grief that feels like golden sunshine pouring through rain soaked clouds, aching and sweet at the same time. It’s a feeling I tried to put into paint.

And though we don’t really know what happens to the souls of babies who haven’t been baptized, I rejoice in the Church’s teaching on baptism of desire. As the parent of these children who absolutely would have been baptized if they had lived, I confidently entrust them to the love and mercy of God and hope to see them all in Heaven someday.

To all mothers and fathers who have lost babies, I hope that you too can find rest in God’s mysterious will and look forward with reverent hope to the day we can meet our little ones beyond the veil.