When Dust Blows Away

He comes padding into my bedroom early in the morning, his little boy haircut making him look like such a big boy, but we both know he's my baby.  I pull him in next to me, pull quilt and comforter up under his little chin, and in the early morning light we grin at each other, snuggle closer.

I am in love.

I have been since even before I saw that squinched up newborn face, before I even knew that "the baby" was a little boy baby, one with brown eyes and a sideways smile that turns me to pure liquid whenever he pulls it out.

But while I'm holding my boy close this morning, I can't ignore, can't forget.  Every day, the possibility of tragedy looms.  We are dust, and dust can quickly and quietly be brushed away.

It has been a week of lost little ones.

First a friend's heart breaks when her little one still in the womb stills.  Perhaps  the least recognized or understood grief left in the world - that of losing someone you have yet to meet.  He had a name.  He had a family.  He was loved and wanted and prayed for, and suddenly, he's gone - feet never to touch this earth.

Then I'm reading online and what's that?  Dana's little one, sweet Mattias, merely weeks older than my little Joboy, snuffed out by a freak accident on a normal day at home with Mama.  Hearts break all over the world when reading her story.

There is nothing more unnatural, more against nature, than the separation of Mama and baby.  The quick and painful slashing of those ties can leave marks that scar, deep.  I wonder if I lost my heart, here looking at me with those liquid brown eyes - would I hear his phantom footsteps for days after?  Would I see his face in those of other little boys?

I know its morbid and not very Christmas -y, but wait -

Another baby came.  A beautiful one, Heaven sent.  He came to wipe away every tear from every eye.  He came to heal, restore.  To take broken, hurting, grief stricken people and to draw them to him, fill them abundantly and bring them home.

I cannot understand the pain of losing a baby.  It is incomprehensible to me.  But there is that hope and that faith that both little ones are in Heaven, waiting on their Mamas.  All because Someone cared enough to come and pour Himself out for all of us.