Grief and Grace in the NICU

remembering two Junes + writing prompts + June Writing Hour

It was 1991, and I was a summer Clinical Pastoral Education intern—a student chaplain—in the Chapel Hill hospital where I met my husband (but that's a different kind of love story than this one.)

During overnight shifts, I slept in the tiny on-call room, under thin sheets and glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Every time I woke to the heart-pounding jolt of the damn beeper, I wondered if I had made a bad career choice. Hastily combing my hair, then navigating through the maze of corridors, my mouth was always dry, and my stomach clenched at the unknown trauma ahead.

One June night I ended up in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. A sadder place to be in the middle of the night, I have not found. The parents of the babies doing well go home to sleep, resting up for another day of adventures in feeding and precious time skin-to-skin. You get called to the NICU overnight when things aren’t going well.

There were three generations of a family in the darkened room to which the nurse ushered me. A seventeen-year-old mother sat in a rocking chair. Her own mother stood nearby. In the arms of the teenager was a tiny bundle. The baby had lived only a few minutes. His twin was holding his own in another area.

The women wanted something from me, but not comfort, or non-answers to why, or even prayer. They wanted me to baptize the baby. They had no real church affiliation that I could discern. They weren’t Catholic, like the family later in the summer for whom I called a priest. They had some idea that baptism must be done, but only in the vaguest sense. There was no urgency about the state of the baby's soul. Just a request for my help. Regardless of my trauma-induced career angst, I was the one with the chaplain nametag. I stuttered out something vaguely pastoral and promised to return.

Retreating to the empty chaplains’ offices I scanned the shelves for some guidance. Nothing applied. I sat at one of the desks and tried to collect my thoughts on paper. My Protestant theological education thus far told me that baptism is for the living, upon welcome into the church. In my tradition, there is no need to baptize a child who has died or is dying, and there is never a fear for the state of anyone’s soul. If you answered this scenario’s question on the final exam by saying you would baptize the baby, the theology professor or ordination exam grader might fail you for bad theology, badly applied. But there is also this: God mourns along with us, and pastoral care is given to those who grieve, and by responding with an act of grace and love, the pastoral care professor might give you an A.

So where did that leave me in the middle of a lonely night? Does one baptize an infant who has died? Would the theological powers-that-be find out? What would I say, if I did it? My gut told me I had nothing else to give this family other than a ritual of some kind.

The night staff caring for the family was about to rotate off, and I wanted to do something before their shift ended. So I flung a prayer towards the Holy Spirit asking her to please show up—a repeated prayer that has sustained me through three decades of ministry. Back in the NICU, I ended up in a classroom with the family, a few nurses, and the doctor. The mother gently handed me her firstborn. She wiped away a tear, then looked at me expectantly. Reaching down into some reserve I didn't know I had, I held that still small boy, smoothed the blanket from his head, and prayed to God who knows what it means to lose a child. With water, I named the baby a child of God—known and loved. It was easy and hard.

Afterward, the doctor gave the family a beautiful achingly tiny wooden casket that he had handmade at home. I wonder how many he has given away? We had both given what we could to this family. By the next day, rocking their surviving twin, they were calling it "the memorial service." I have never regretted it.

Six years later, on another June day in a different city, I was the mother in the rocking chair. My own still small boy had held on for four days. His twin was holding on in another hospital. But time was running out for Jack.

We desperately wanted a ritual—two pastors trying to say goodbye when we had never really gotten to say hello. We fretted and discussed how best to let our extended family—captive in one of those awful consultation rooms—take part. Could they each come in and hold him? Would they even want to? Should we beep a chaplain or ask a clergy friend to come help us? Were there some secret words or actions we could arrange that would make this somehow okay?

A wise nurse finally told us to stop thinking about everybody else, and just do what we needed to do for ourselves. We did not need a ritual with water. Earlier in the week, while I was still recovering in the other hospital, Dan had been visited in his NICU vigil by a kind chaplain who had anointed our Jack with oil and prayed. Now, we just needed time—whatever we had left. I don't remember exactly what we said or did as Jack slipped away from us, but I know I held him, and Dan sat behind me with his arms around us both. We prayed and sang and talked, for all the time we had. It was easy and hard. But the Holy Spirit showed up, and so did grace. Our child knew love, and so did we.

Many years have passed, and I still wonder about that other mother. I pray that her surviving twin has grown strong and healthy like mine. Her child would be 32 now—she herself, just 49. I imagine I have become to her as the nurses in the NICU have to me—sort of faceless, the details fuzzy, but moments of kindness stand out. I hope the ritual I helped her with continues to give her some peace. She has no way to know that she helped me later on, showing me that grief and grace can coexist in the same NICU, and how to say goodbye and hello in almost the same breath—skills I would need in my own first days as a mother, and as a pastor. Because after that night, I knew that’s what I was—a pastor who would choose grace over theology every time.

Grace and love have always been the right answer, haven’t they?

I read a quote this week from Episcopal priest and writer Becca Stevens, reflecting on her June ordination 32 years ago, the same June I was on call as a chaplain. She said: “I care less about dogma now, and just want to practice the doggedness of love. I believe in less things, but what I am left believing buckles my knees in gratitude.”

Less dogma. More practice of the doggedness of love. Grace, love, gratitude, even in the middle of grief, even in the middle of the night.

writing prompt possibilities

What matters less to you now than it used to? What matters more?

Or, when has a simple ritual been a moment of grace and love for you?

Or, how are grief and grace entwined for you?

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Welcome to new subscribers to Writing in Company. I’m glad you are here! Each week I share a brief thought and a writing prompt. They are meant to be a jumping-off point for you to do some writing on your own about what matters. Use the prompts however you like—to journal, to draft thoughts for your own writing project, as meditation ideas, or for another creative endeavor. Grab your pen and paper, and see what happens.

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