A Catholic Grief

Our family has gone through some very tough moments since October 19, 2015. That is the day we gained a very little saint in heaven.

We named her Mary Bernadette, even though there is no way to know for sure her gender. I like to think she is the official patron saint of the Hoberg family.

It is an odd thing to mourn someone you have never seen face to face. There are no pictures, no momentos, no favorite objects to cling to.

Instead, I've found pictures of her patrons, St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Guadalupe, and placed them on our family altar in her honor.

This is a particularly raw time in which to experience a miscarriage. October is the national month for pregnancy and infant loss, and November is the month Catholics remember the dead. Nothing like the rest of the world hitting you over the head with reminders for remembering how much this hurts.

I generally do not feel helped by national months/days for categories I represent. It feels like, because we have designed a time to talk and feel about this issue, everyone is off the hook the rest of the year.

But I don't get a day off. It's my every moment.

I'm not at a place yet where I can write things like "what to do to help your friend going through miscarriage". I don't know what I'll need tomorrow and I barely know what I need today.
All I really want to do is pray, and all I really need to your prayers right now.

Our little family is hurting right now, but we're doing our best to incorporate our little saint into our lives.
We will be a having a Blessing for the Parents of Miscarried Children, and evening prayer from the Office of the Dead. We will be adding her to our family altar, which I always build in remembrance of our dead loved ones during the month of November.

If you are currently experiencing a miscarriage, I would love to hear from you. If nothing else, we can pray for each other.

Other bloggers have been able to write far more on this topic. Mandi at A Blog About Miscarriage is amazingly thorough, loving, and real in her writing. Her resource lists are worth linking to in of themselves.