Chaplain's Corner

Have you ever lost something really important, really valuable to you and nobody seemed to care? The response is often, “Too bad, so sad.” And that’s it – no real concern. Can you imagine being met by that the attitude if you were expecting a child and your child died before it was born or was dead when it was born? Maybe you can’t, but every day couples are experiencing this loss and many never say a word about it, because they don’t believe those they might tell really care.

In 2013 according to Statistics Canada estimates, there were 142,000 births in Canada. Statistics related to miscarriages are a bit harder to come by as many women miscarry even before their have their first doctor’s appointment to confirm the pregnancy. But a consensus of studies estimates that between 25% and 33% of all pregnancies in Canada end in miscarriage, this means that between 47,000 and 71,000 pregnancies end in miscarriage every year in Canada. That is a lot of sorrow, a lot of grief, a lot of sadness that many couples simply absorb into their souls because they don’t really think anyone cares. But why do people conclude that nobody cares?

I think the better question is “Why should we think anyone would care?” After all, our society is desperately trying to convince us that the loss wasn’t that of a child, but just a bit of tissue or as medical folks often put it the product of conception or more dehumanizing yet, POC. I have found it interesting over the years that the very same people that deny the personhood of a yet unborn child almost universally speak of “my baby” when they are expectant mothers or “our baby” if they are expectant parents. It is as if we instinctively know that when a child is conceived, that child is a person. But when we want to talk about the pain of miscarriage or when we want to talk about abortion, that very same baby becomes a “non-person”, just the product of conception, just a handy acronym – POC.

Forgive my rant, but this is something that drives me crazy in our culture. We conveniently change the way we speak of unborn children in an attempt to make the loss less painful. But if you have experienced such a loss, you know that from the moment you realized you were pregnant your baby was loved, valued as persons and the loss is grieved as the death of your child. If you are a mother or father that has experienced this kind of quiet loss, if you have chosen just to keep the loss to yourself or to a very small number of others you know care. I understand. It is hard enough to say good bye to a child that dies before he or she is born but to have others treat the loss as if it were nothing – well it just adds insult to injury.

For many years I have hosted a service in May for parents who have experience this kind of quiet loss. Last year, I was so preoccupied with other projects that I was engaged with that I didn’t remember that I had forgotten to plan and hold  the service until August. I have felt bad about this for months and I vowed to myself that  I would not allow that to happen again. On Wednesday, May 28th at 1:00 p.m. at the Heritage Cemetery in Steinbach a quiet, reverent service will be held to help parents who have experienced the death of their child through miscarriage or still birth. The foundations of the service are Christian and the purpose of the service is to acknowledge that your baby was a person and one of the ways we dignify the death of a person is hold a memorial service in which that person is named, remembered and the loss is grieved.

Another purpose of the service is to take a stand against the cultural drift that depersonalizes a yet unborn child. Did you know that in 1991, 23 years ago now, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a child in the process of being born was not a “person” (even though the child’s head was outside the mother’s body). This ruling affirms the tragic cultural attitude that denies that unborn babies are people by denying them the legal rights of personhood.

What a strange contradiction our culture presents. For marketing purposes, it is more than happy to target us as a consumer when it comes to spending money for the purchase of goods and services in preparation for your “baby’s” birth. Members of the medical community from public health practitioners to OB/GYNs talk about your unborn child as a baby, a person. Private obstetric sonography clinics entice you to come in and have your baby’s picture taken before it is even born. But many of those same medical practitioners, if you experience a miscarriage quickly change their language to speak of your child as impersonal tissue, the products of conception.

Well, we don’t have to accept this ambiguous and self-serving contradiction. If you believe as I do that at the moment of conception a wonderfully unique and special person comes into existence, then correct people when they speak of the unborn child as a thing, as an it, as a piece of tissue more like a tumor than a person. Speak up and refuse to go with the flow. We don’t have to be rude, but neither do we have to acquiesce to something as contradictory as this cultural opinion.

If you have suffered the loss of a child through miscarriage, you know deep in your soul that what happened was the death of a person and it is right to feel the grief of that loss. Processing grief is a personal matter but over the years as grief has been studies, one of the common things that can help us deal with the loss is to have a formal time to remember the person who died. Generally these are called funerals or memorial services.

Because so few couples ever are offered the opportunity to have a memorial service to remember  the life and mark the death of their unborn child. These annual events held at the Heritage Cemetery give you that opportunity. If you lost a child through miscarriage or still birth in the last two years (again, please forgive my preoccupation in 2013) You will receive a letter from me early in May inviting you to the Memorial Service that will be held on Wednesday, May 28th at 1:00 p.m. at the Heritage Cemetery.

It is a simple service. A bit of music, a very short meditation, some readings and probably most important, an opportunity for your child’s name to be read aloud and a moment of silence provided for all those in attendance to remember your child. Remains of unborn children may have been preserved for interment and if they were,  one of the local funeral directors from Birchwood will assist in the interment of those remains at the conclusion of the service.

A grave and memorial stone stand at the cemetery inviting any who pass by to remember the little one who never saw the light of day. The grave site also gives you a place to go, if this brings comfort to you, to remember this loss from time to time, just as you might a beloved parent or grandparent who had passed away.

Maybe you lost a child to miscarriage years ago and never had the opportunity to formally mark your child’s passing. Please feel free to join us at for the memorial service. In the past we have had 80 year old mothers join us and remember the passing of several children lost through miscarriage and their comments have always been,  “I wish I would have had this opportunity years ago.” Having fathered five children who died through miscarriage, I know that this service has helped me each of the 12 years it has been held to remember the unborn children that my wife and I look forward to meeting for the first time, someday in heaven.