Finding Light

Finding Light
By: Elizabeth Knox
“Loss leaves us empty- but learn not to close your heart and mind in grief. Allow life to replenish you. When sorrow comes, it seems impossible- but new joys wait to fill the void.” -Pat Brown I believe that everything happens for a reason. Before the death of my daughter, I believed that nothing bad or tragic, would or could ever happen to me. Never again will I ever think that. Death, grief, tragedy, and despair are happening to people everyday, we need to find the spiritual reason to see the light through the long dark tunnel.
In the beginning, my grief started months before the death of my daughter. After many ultrasounds and Specialist visits, I was told that my daughter, Lilly, had a rare chromosome disorder called Trisomy 18. The Specialist explained that Lilly was incompatible for life and that she would be born too early or that she would be stillborn. For months, even though my heart was hurt and my eyes were filled with tears, I cherished every little kick with great comfort in knowing that she was alive. It was almost like her little way of telling me “Mommy, don’t cry! I’m still here!”. I would pray every night, “Lord, I don’t know your plan for Lilly’s life but I pray that me and my family will be able to hold her alive and that she will be born to term”. I put all my faith in God, that my prayers would be answered.
In six hours I had the best day of my life with the birth of my daughter and I also had the worst day of my life with the death of my daughter. On October 26, 2007 at 10:40 pm, my daughter Lilly was born to term and alive. Looking in Lilly’s eyes, I felt how much she loved me and how much I loved her. After giving birth, the instant connection and love between a mother and her baby is so strong, so true, and so pure. To have that love taken from you is devastating. Lilly passed away on October 27, 2007 at 4:40am. The grief that I felt after losing Lilly was so overwhelming that I was blinded by devastation. I felt so angry, betrayed, as though my world had completely been ripped apart. All the dreams and the things I wanted to do with my daughter, like braid her hair, comfort her and hold her when she didn’t feel good, give her kisses and pray with her before she went to sleep, were ripped away from me like they had no meaning. My daughter’s death made me realize so many things and it completely changed my prospective on life and death.
“Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived.” -Anon How precious life is when its cut short and how precious time is when there isn’t enough. Through my experience I have found and been blessed with a great ministry to speak to others. A ministry that has helped others find their way through their very tough and tragic experience. Believing now that life is what you make it, I live my life treating others like they have just been through my experience, cherishing every moment with the people that are still with me, and handing every situation that comes in my life to God. I believe also that death is what you make it. Death, no matter how tragic, is beautiful and the beginning of life, life with no more death or destruction.
Through the tragedy of losing my daughter, I have found new life. A life filled with love and care for the loved ones still here with me, treating other’s lives as precious as my own, and cherishing every moment as if it could be the last. This prospective has helped me on my journey of grief in finding the light.