by Jocelyn Abyad
I watched as my friend slowly and courageously walked toward the gravesite. In her arms she carried her youngest son, who was miscarried at twelve weeks. This was her second time accompanying her baby to a grave this year, and my heart ached for her.
As she approached, I enveloped her in a hug.
How do you bear it? she whispered in my ear, and immediately I was transported back three years to the same question on my own lips. Sitting on a couch and begging the friend in front of me to tell me the same—how will I bear this? How can I keep on living in a world where my babies do not?
Woman Looking out a Window (Portrait of A. M. Hooey), George Albert Thompson, 1895
At the time, I had lost three babies to miscarriage over the course of a year, and my heart was raw. My faith, my belief in a God who is good, was shaken. My confidence in my motherhood and my ability to care for the souls entrusted to me was lost. I could no longer laugh; fear and anxiety tainted all my thoughts.
How can I bear it? This is the question all of us who have suffered miscarriage ask. It courses through our veins and screams in our hearts and begs for an answer. As my friend carried her tiny son to his burial place, I asked the Lord again in my heart.
How do we bear it?
Advertisement
I hear the answers…
You will carry your children to their resting place with fortitude and love that you didn’t realize dwelled within you. Your motherhood will expand to a sacrificial depth you caught glimpses of during labor and delivery but had no idea how truly deep and wide this path would turn. God will provide you with supernatural strength to put one foot in front of the other in these moments.
Your friends will bring meals, and your family will show up. Imperfectly and perhaps haltingly, they will do their best to lighten the load. Some of them will simply sit in silence and suffer with you, and that will mean more than all the practical help in the world.
Your living children will pull you back to the minutiae of daily life—not only for the meals, laundry, errands, and chores, but also for laughter, stories, and sweet smiles before you thought you were ready. You will participate in life, though as through a window for some time. You are watching yourself as a bystander, but one day, you will laugh again and realize that this time, after so much pretending, you meant it.
You will read. You will consume all the books on loss and grief and finding faith when you think you have lost it. You will read about physical healing and reasons why these losses may have come to pass. You will go down the rabbit hole of articles and memoirs, and your heart will be moved by the revelation that you are not alone on this journey. Women from time immemorial have carried this burden as well.
You will talk to a therapist and attend retreats. You will meet other women who will share their stories and listen to yours. You will tell your story enough times that you can tell it without tears choking the words. This story will become one of many that make you who you are. You will become a new woman that is far more tender and resilient, intimately connected with the God we serve as well as His people.
You will pray and long for Heaven like you never have before. You will go to church, despite the awkward looks of sympathy from those around you. The rhythm of your faith since childhood will carry and console you, despite the ebbs and flows of feeling and emotion that cause you to question and doubt. Like the tide coming back in on the beach, your heart will fill again with a deeper faith after this period of despair.
You will learn that God’s will does indeed include suffering and loss in this world, and yet He is still good. You will find a day when you can pray, “Thy will be done,” and mean it. You will read scripture in a new light and see all the ways that God prepares us for the cross and weaves in the resurrection.
But for the moment, you are too raw to hear that. It will take time for all these truths to settle in. It will take time for your own path forward to come to light. For now, I will hold your hand. I will hold hope for you when the darkness and sadness cloud your vision. I will be confident that it won’t always be this way, that the grief will not overtake you forever, but that the God whom we have served in our happiness is faithful in our devastation.
How will we bear it?
Together. Together with Christ. Together with each other. And one day at a time.
Jocelyn Abyad is the wife of Fr. Zyad Abyad and mother of 7 daughters on earth and 3 babies in Heaven. She shares insights on homeschooling and liturgical living across multiple platforms as Melkite Momma and is a regular contributor to Byzikids Magazine. In 2024, she co-founded We Carry You Still, a nonprofit ministry offering support and resources for women and families who have experienced miscarriage or infant loss. You can find and follow Jocelyn on Instagram.