Bleeding Heart

When open to life means open to loss

The Sacred Heart (public domain)

A note to readers: the topic of this essay is more personal than usual and deals with pregnancy loss. I understand if you feel the need to skip this one. Otherwise, thanks for reading.

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I didn’t read Anne of Green Gables until I was twenty-six. I think this is a shame because the series is exquisite, probably some of the best literature ever written. As with To Kill a Mockingbird, I resisted reading Anne of Green Gables because a parent kept encouraging me to read it - this time my Mom. I know now that she was right about Anne.

While I wish I had read these books sooner, beyond the first two books in a series of eight, they are not really meant for children. L.M. Montgomery’s Anne books follow the titular Anne well into middle age and cover certain topics, like profound loss, difficult marriages, and loneliness that children don’t fully appreciate.

All of the books are tinged with tragedy, but the one that moves me the most is Anne’s House of Dreams. This is the book in which Anne marries her beloved Gilbert at long last. She is pregnant within weeks of the wedding and is overjoyed at the prospect of welcoming a baby. But the birth is excruciating, and Anne barely survives. Her precious daughter, Joyce, lives only a few hours.

I ran to that book three weeks ago when we discovered that a much-wanted pregnancy, which would have been our second living child, had ended at nine weeks.

I had losses before our son was born, but all very early. This was new to me. I saw this child’s heart beat. We had picked out a name.

The actual loss happened in May, but the days that followed were in June, the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It’s my favorite month of the year. Since my reversion experience at twenty-three, I’ve felt an intense devotion to the Sacred Heart. That image comforted me more than ever through the past few weeks as I imagined our Savior’s heart bleeding for me, and for you.

When Anne loses her daughter in Anne’s House of Dreams, a beloved neighbor says, “The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away, dearie…Blessed be the name of the Lord.”¹

I’ve heard this passage many times before and I tried to keep it in mind after our loss. I had entrusted our pregnancy to the Lord, including the possibility of this outcome, early on. Hadn’t I?

Anne’s adoptive mother Marilla pleads with her after Joyce’s death, insisting that “We can’t understand - but we must have faith - we MUST believe that all is for the best.” Still, Montgomery tells us that Marilla is “[h]elpless before the riddle of the universe - the WHY of undeserved pain.”²

That’s how I felt for a while - helpless before the riddle of the universe. Sometimes I still do, even as the waves of grief recede now and again.

I know what it is to have your heart bleed in a way I did not as a child or even at twenty-three. I know I haven’t felt the same pain that Jesus did, and I know that he wouldn’t ask me to walk through suffering that He had not already endured. And I know that he is beside me, closer than ever, as I pass through the dark valley.

All of this helps me, but the loss still stings.

That little heartbeat haunts me. I suppose it always will. I realize now how deeply Anne would have understood this.

The value of literature is that it helps us chart the unimaginable. People long dead can soothe us and share our grief through the power of words. All the more reason, I think, to keep writing.

I don’t want everyone to think it’s been all doom and gloom around here, though. I am weird enough that I started a Dostoevsky appreciation blog as a stay-at-home Mom, and I was even weirder as a kid and teen, which meant I had to develop a sense of humor. So most days, I feel like this:

From https://www.reddit.com/r/DunderMifflin/comments/mzswvl/my_heart_melts_everytime_someone_screws_with_toby/

Not so much like this:

From https://music.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/227fcd40-f491-48f9-a621-77fd2c4e4e12/gif

I remind myself that, at least for the time being, I won’t have to go through another postpartum winter (which can be really tough). I also remind myself that good can and does come from our worst experiences. I admit I sympathize more than ever these days with St. Teresa’s famous quip to God - “If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them!”³ Yet I remain grateful for my life and all the joy in it. I suppose that’s how it is for everyone.

There’s also the fact that my husband and I have been blessed with some of the best friends in the world. I know everyone says this, but for us it’s true. We’ve received so much generosity and kindness in the past few weeks that we can never repay. I will never forget how others embraced us, literally and figuratively, at this time. How can it be true that so much good can come of something so sad? It is one of the mysteries of this life.

Catholics are what we call “open to life,” which means we ensure our marriages are open to receiving the gift of children. Vastly simplified, this means no artificial birth control. (Please read this⁴ if you would like to learn more about the Catholic perspective on marriage and the gift of children). Before I was married, I thought this meant being “open” to a dozen mischievous children a la the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. And it does mean that for some. For others it means fewer children. For some of us, it means loss. For some of us, tragically, it means no children at all.

This is part of the mystery of faith. When I went through a string of early losses, a priest friend told me that “God knows what you need to be holy.” I could see how these words might rankle some, but I found them comforting. For me, his advice calls to mind the Lord’s words to St. Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, and my strength is made perfect in weakness.”⁵

Lately I’ve repeated this to myself throughout the day. I know, deep down, that it is true.

1. L.M. Montgomery, Anne’s House of Dreams, Chapter 19.

2. Id.

3. Angelo Stagnaro, “If this is how you treat your friends…” The National Catholic Register, October 15, 2016, https://www.ncregister.com/blog/if-this-is-how-you-treat-your-friends.

4. Paul VI “Humanae Vitae.” The Vatican: The Holy See, 1968. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

5. 2 Corinthians 12:9