On Loan

A midwife is a co-laborer – coaching, encouraging a new life into existence. An integral part of birth. A celebrant. But that new life doesn’t belong to her. She leaves the birthing room empty handed. Satisfied, perhaps, by a job well done. But she herself hasn’t become a mother. 

Two years ago, the image of a midwife came to mind. Through the night I sat by my mother’s bed counting each breath. Willing peace into that room. Straining with her, listening, anticipating, leaning in, whispering encouragement. She wasn’t giving birth, she was being reborn. She began to withdraw and took on an intense, inward focus. I remembered a similar feeling during my own childbirth. I shut the world out around me and every fiber of my being focused on birthing. Death and birth are strangely similar. Generally speaking, though, one is a happy event and one is sad. 

It’s such a strange thing watching a body become incapable of sustaining life. The one thing it was meant to do it can do no longer. I still loved that body. The hands and cheek, the arms and ears. That body had been my home, my first home, for months. Only three people in the whole world knew what her heart sounded like from the inside. But by morning no one had a use for her body anymore. Not even her. 

I will never forget her own mother’s passing. She was frantic to hold on to her, desperate to reach her before the last breath. She didn’t make it. I remember thinking very carefully that I wouldn’t do that to her. The last thing I said to her was, “It’s okay, you can let go. You’re doing good. Just let go. It’s going to be okay.” It sounded, to my ears, a lot like what my nurses whispered to me as I pushed my little babies into this world. I hoped my words gave her what she needed to pass into her new life. She always wanted approval, cared what people thought, wanted to get it right. I was determined in her last moments she would get that from me. 

It’s stunning how 730 days can pass, crammed full of life, but in a moment I’m in that room again, listening to her breath. I can feel every moment. It’s the same with the birth of my babies. Every moment is etched in my mind. I can’t remember what I ate for dinner last Saturday, but whole hours are seared in my mind from the day I became a mother and the day I lost mine. 

Billions of people have been born and died since the beginning of the world. Each one of them have mattered, to someone. What has surprised me is how much her death has mattered to me. I like to think I’m practical, diligent, resilient, hopeful, rational, in control, and in a lot of ways I am, but I’m also an introspective, a yoyo, an extremist, sensitive, an idealist, and a critic. Sometimes I’m just numb. If I allow myself to feel the full weight of what her death means to me, and really what death means to the whole human race, I might not be able to function. Certainly that first year there were moments that I was just coping. 

Her death pulled back the thin veil of humanity and reminded me that life is on loan. When the midwife walks out of the labor room that just born life doesn’t belong to her. But neither does it belong to the mother, not really. She may be the most intimate relationship in that child’s life for a time, but no one owns life. We’re stewarding even our own.

Life belongs to the Creator.

For a season he may tie hearts together. We can be the midwives, coaches, partners, friends, mentors, champions, counselors and countless other things in the lives of those we love. But in the end only God is master. Only he says “come” and has the right to be obeyed. I like to think on the other side of death’s door mom’s perfect Father held her in his arms, welcomed her into her new life, kissed her face with joy, and blessed her with a new name – just like she had for me on the day of my birth.