My Broken Spirit

a fiction story by Donna Poole

based on a true story by Katherine Clow

I don’t love you more than your siblings; I really don’t. I think my feelings for you are so intense because you’re my first daughter, Vivianne, the one I got to hold in my heart but not keep in my arms. I still have all this love I’ve never been able to give you. I never rocked you to sleep. I couldn’t comfort you when you were sick. I never tiptoed into your room and tucked money under your pillow when you lost your first tooth. You’d be eleven now, probably all long arms and legs, still a little girl, but not for long. I wonder if you’d smile and laugh all the time, the way I did when I was eleven. I think you’d love being big sister to your four little sisters, and I know they’d adore you.

I’ve missed you so much through the years. I’ve remembered you on every one of your birthdays and tried to imagine what you’d look like and what you’d be doing if you were still here with us. Every Christmas I’ve pictured you baking cookies with me, helping decorate the tree, and whispering secrets as we hid a gift for your dad. Sometimes, I’ve almost seen you as one of the angels in our church Christmas program. I’ve had to look twice to convince myself it wasn’t you.

Would you have loved the first swim of the summer? Shouted with joy when it snowed the first time each winter? Would chocolate have been your favorite ice cream flavor? I’d love to know all these things and so many more.

But it wasn’t to be. God took you to heaven. I didn’t blame him, and I wasn’t bitter, but only another mother who has lost her infant daughter can understand my grief. When he took you, he took a piece of me too.

I don’t know who said this, but it’s so true; “You never arrived in my arms, but you will never leave my heart.” 

You never did leave it, and you never will.

Everywhere we’ve moved I’ve taken your little lamb and your memory box. We’ve moved often because your dad is in the navy. You’d be proud of him.

Things happen when you move. On this last move, they lost a third of our belongings. Things are just things, right? But they lost my memory box of you. When that happened, all the love I’d never been able to give you became grief so powerful it broke me.

It shattered and broke my spirit. I broke even more when they tried to trace the box but couldn’t find it.

“Just file a claim,” they said.  

Just file a claim.

How could I file a claim? Nothing could replace the treasures in that memory box. I know I’ll see you again in heaven someday, but that box was irreplaceable.

Sweet baby girl, I did what I always do when I’m broken. I poured out my heart to God, the God who’s holding you in his arms. I begged him to help me be content with losing your memory box. And somehow, he did. I was still sad, but he healed my broken spirit the way only he can.

You’ll never believe what happened next, but maybe you already know. Perhaps God told you. Last week I got a phone call. They’d found the lost vault with our things. They delivered it just this past Monday, and you guessed it, there was your memory box, as intact as my love for you! We didn’t get back everything we’d lost, but I didn’t care. I praised God as I put your memory box where I’ll see it every day, and I put your little tan and white lamb on top of it.

Sunday, we went to church, and they sang one of my favorites, “Victory in Jesus.” It was the last hymn E. M. Bartlett wrote before he died. The words at the end of the second verse meant more to me on Sunday than they ever had before: “And then I cried, ‘Dear Jesus, come and heal my broken spirit.’ And somehow Jesus came and brought to me the victory.”

The chorus and the third verse shout with hope:

“O victory in Jesus, my Savior, forever!
He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood;
He loved me ere I knew Him, and all my love is due Him.
He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood.

“I heard about a mansion he has built for me in glory,
And I heard about the streets of gold beyond the crystal sea;
About the angels singing and the old redemption story,
And some sweet day I’ll sing up there the song of victory.”

Vivianne, you’re already there, beyond the crystal sea. Mommy will join you someday when my life here is done, but meanwhile, I have happy work to do. I have your dad, your four sisters, and many other people to love, and I plan to do just that.

I’ll keep your memory box close, and sometimes a tear or two might find its way down my cheek, because I only know you in my dreams. Someday, though, I’ll get to know you and hug you with the love I’ve been holding in my heart all these years. Our whole family will be together, and we’ll all sing with the angels. Maybe we’ll even sing “Victory in Jesus!”

You be watching for the rest of us to come, okay?

The End

Photos by Katherine Clow

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These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

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