My Place in the Garden
It’s too bad we lost that branch,” my mom says. “Now there’s just a big hole in the middle.”
We are sitting on the patio looking at her Japanese maple tree that lost one of its main branches to last winter’s storm. Her comment catches me off guard. Is she talking about the tree or me? I lost two of my branches to the winter too. My twin daughters, born at 28 weeks and conjoined, left the world soon after they entered into it, leaving a gaping hole.
Both of our wounds—the tree’s and mine—are yet young. Both of us are scarred. The tree’s wound is black, sealed with tar to keep it from weeping. Mine, on my abdomen, is a reminder every day of the physical and emotional anguish I experienced this winter. I don’t know much about trees. Will the wound ever heal? I wonder. I look at older, more experienced trees. Though now full and mature, they still bear the marks of earlier damage. And other mothers who have lost a child—they tell me they still think about their children every day, and cry over them occasionally too.
It is a hard spring—both in my heart and the mountain valley in which I live. Some days are warm and sunny, but inevitably the snow will come again, and I wonder if warmth will ever come to stay. I wonder how Heavenly Father could have taken my girls away. I can understand that my daughters are in paradise; that they are protected and progressing through the Atonement of Christ. But what about me?
My story followed the pattern of the seasons. As summer slid into fall I took pride in my harvest. I had two beautiful sons. I was in great shape. I learned to wakeboard. We were in a new home, and I had actually figured out how to keep it clean. I felt like (as my mom would say) I had pulled it all together.
Conference weekend came with the familiar, but unexpected, feeling of morning sickness. A pregnancy test indicated that my all-together life was about to unravel. The prospect of a new baby was not a tragedy by any means. My husband and I always intended to have more children. But I was enjoying what I had.
Fall grew colder and I just grew. I marveled that I could be so tired and so hormonal. I was astounded that I could be so big this time around, and exasperated that my body could be falling apart while I was still so young. Something was clearly different, though not clearly wrong, as I endured the holiday season.
January is the coldest month here. It always is, and this year was no exception. I went into my routine ultrasound stuffed into my regular jeans. I had never worn maternity pants before 20 weeks, and my pride would not let me this time, even if I had gained twice the weight. Moments into the screening the image revealed twins, and concerns over my expanding waistline faded away as I mulled over how I would care for a preschooler, a toddler, and two infants. I rejoiced in the prospect of balancing my boy/girl ratio so quickly. But as I was planning I was told that my two girls were conjoined. The devastation of that announcement was nothing compared to the news that followed. Over the course of the next week we learned that they shared a liver, and that one baby had fatal heart defects that would prove devastating to her sister as well. Given overwhelming odds that they would even be born alive, I went home to wait to miscarry. But I couldn’t consider my daughters dead as they stirred with life inside of me.
Although the days in January supposedly get brighter, I experienced the darkest day of my life as one physician told me that not only would my daughters not survive to be born, but if I didn’t terminate the pregnancy immediately, I would endanger my life and certainly put an end to my childbearing. If I had even a slim hope that they would live, I could stick out the pregnancy. But was I willing to risk leaving my boys without a mother, or give up my chances for children in the future? I wasn’t sure. Always in my life, the grounds for when it was acceptable to end a pregnancy had been theoretical. It seemed inconceivable that this would be a choice I would actually have to make. Yet here I was, knowing that whatever I decided would guarantee neither life nor death—both choices hopeless.
Hopelessness had swallowed every ounce of faith I thought I had. Perhaps Father in Heaven saw some infinitesimal evidence of remaining faith, though I could not feel it. In the midst of my darkest day, when I had reasoned that I should follow this doctor’s advice and give up, I received a glimpse into the plan. I had been staring down one bleak path and He took me by the shoulders and turned me toward a brighter one. I saw that Heavenly Father meant for these daughters to be born. I could not see how that would happen or what would happen beyond, but armed with this knowledge I resolved to do everything in my power to see that they made it, and I worked to develop the faith for any miracle that might occur.
February became the waiting month. We waited through a month of tests, scans, and meetings with specialists. I relished every kick and movement from two pairs of arms and legs, knowing they might be the only I experienced with them. I knew that there was a plan, and day by day as it unfolded, I adjusted mine to fit.
As the month changed I was in the hospital. Within a few days it became clear that I could not carry these babies any longer. Even as I prepared for delivery I agonized over my decision. Barely into the third trimester, with underdeveloped lungs even for their premature age, I knew my babies would not make it if I delivered. But waiting even another day was too risky for me. The choice was made for me when my membranes ruptured, and with the water came the merciful reassurance that I had done enough.
During the minutes that constituted my daughters’ earthly life, and through tender experiences over the next few days, I felt confirmation that all had happened exactly as Heavenly Father intended. I can’t explain how I know this, but I know it as well as I know that being stuck with a needle hurts—as well as I know who was in the operating room that morning. Things were foreordained to be this way. But as I rode home in a car with condolence flowers where car seats should have been, the void was all too apparent.
March is the hardest time to live in the mountains. Everywhere else the world is in bloom, but when I look outside all I see are various shades of gray. In an attempt to force spring I plant some pansies in the front yard. It is miserably cold and my boys are anxious to go in before I can finish. I go inside frustrated. The flowers fall victim to the frost. Spring is supposed to be the season of birth, but all my attempts at new life are failing soon after they begin.
Eventually summer does come, and with it warmth in my heart. I think of the maple tree often, but soon I find myself remembering another tree and comparing myself to it instead. Hugh B. Brown tells of a currant bush on his farm that had grown over six feet high. In spite of its significant stature, the bush had all gone to wood and produced little fruit, thus requiring Elder Brown, the knowing gardener, to prune it to a humble stump. I study the New Testament and notice how often Christ uses the flora to teach His disciples. I think that God must love to garden, and I begin to see myself in the care of a perfect and constant gardener.
I don’t think it was a coincidence that God gave me both empty arms and empty flowerbeds this spring. He knew how badly my arms needed something to nurture. I am aware of His loving arms around me, guiding my hands and my heart as I work the soil in my own garden, just as they did that morning in the delivery room when my daughters’ spirits passed from my care to His. Each morning I kneel in prayer, and I kneel in the dirt. I plant my seeds wondering how anything will come of something so insignificant. But I remember the seed of faith I planted back in January and the testimony that came from it, and concede that maybe literal seeds can do the same. I condition my plants to search deep through rocky soil to find water so that when the storms come they will be well rooted and firm. I realize that the shallow roots of my testimony were insufficient until I searched deep for Living Water. How great is my joy when my fern, shriveled and dry, suddenly bursts with new life. It is a reminder that Christ is the source of all life, whether it is the lilies (or ferns) of the field, or my babies, or my spirit.
My inadequacies as a novice gardener lend me a new appreciation for the Master. I often neglect to water or prune, but He does not. He did not shield me from this trial, but He did not forsake me. He never will.
So many times I have thought of Abraham. He had been promised posterity to rival the sands of the sea, a family tree with branches unnumbered, bringing the promised Messiah. Yet he had been commanded to cut off the birthright branch. I marvel that given the choice whether or not to obey, he did obey. I think given the option I probably would have chosen to have my daughters stay. But Abraham trusted so completely in the Lord that he consented to sacrifice his dearly loved son. Knowing that Abraham could trust the Lord so fully gives me courage to trust too. I have made covenants regarding my posterity, and though I can’t see the whole design from my place in the garden, I trust that the finished product will be beautiful beyond my imagination.
The tree in my mother’s garden is healing and so am I. With a new spring came a new baby. No children will ever take the place of the ones that are lost, but the void in my arms and in my heart is being filled.
Heather Sullivan and her husband are lucky enough to live in Utah on the Wasatch back, where among the mountains and trails they are discovering their inner granola. Heather spends her time trying to hold her own with the three superheroes-in-training who call her mom. With what energy she has left she likes to garden, cook, and dance in the kitchen to eighties music.
