My wife and I have six children. Four of them are still living.
We lost Joy very early in the pregnancy. By that time we were living in Sauk Centre and had two children. Following our culture’s customs, we sealed what was left of Joy and the placenta for testing. But we buried her, briefly and very informally, in hallowed ground.
Time passed. Two more children joined the two who had been born before Joy.
Our sixth pregnancy gave no indication of trouble. My wife and I, and our four surviving children, were looking forward to seeing the youngest in our family. Contractions, when they started, weren’t at the 50th percentile; but my memory tells me they were inside the ‘normal’ range.
Unexpected Loss
On the way to the hospital, just before we reached the Interstate exit, something happened.
My wife tells me that our baby thrashed around and then was very still. Folks at the hospital detected no heartbeat.
Whatever had gone wrong was more than a rural hospital could handle.
So I followed the ambulance carrying my wife to another hospital, an hour down the road.
Later, not long after midnight, my wife and I saw Elizabeth: beautifully formed, and quite dead.
Arriving home, our son asked “whenever will the baby come?” Sharing what had happened was not at all comfortable, but we managed. Somehow.
That was during February of 2002. More time passed. Much more time.
Saying Good-Bye
While our oldest daughter and I were chatting last week, the topics wandered into how writers use dreams in stories.
That, in turn, reminded her of a dream she’d had:
“I had a dream of playing with a little girl on a sidewalk. After a while, I mentioned wishing I could’ve said good-bye to my sister, Elizabeth. The little girl I was playing with said, ‘You just did’ and disappeared.”
(From a Discord chat with my oldest daughter (May 14, 2026))
Was it a dream? Well, yes: obviously.
Was it ‘just a dream’? I don’t know.
Is the idea that our youngest child gave our oldest a reassuring message ridiculous? I don’t think so.
Clarifying that, the whole seance thing — mediums, spirit photographs, speed-dialing The Great Beyond — is a bad idea and we shouldn’t do it. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2115)
Getting back to that dream, I share my wife’s assessment: “that’s beautiful”.
Finally, our four surviving children were baptized. Joy and Elizabeth weren’t.
I’m not happy about that. But hope is an option. A reasonable one.
Not Getting What We Want, Hoping Anyway
Baptism is very, very important. It’s necessary for salvation. (Catechism, 1257-1261)
But sometimes things don’t go the way we want. Over the last two millennia, a fair number of folks have died without being baptized.
We figure that some experience a baptism of blood. They knew who Jesus is, and decided that being killed was preferable to denying reality. (Catechism, 1258)
Others said they wanted to be baptized, but died before they could receive that sacrament. We figure these folks experience a baptism of desire. (Catechism, 1259)
That’s a very simplified look at the sacrament of Baptism and dealing with a less-than-ideal world.
As for Joy and Elizabeth, I can’t ask them what they wanted. I do know that my wife and I wanted life — including baptism — for both of them.
Our only reasonable option is to remember that hope is a good idea.
“…What has been revealed to us is that the ordinary way of salvation is by the sacrament of Baptism. None of the above considerations should be taken as qualifying the necessity of Baptism or justifying delay in administering the sacrament. Rather, as we want to reaffirm in conclusion, they provide strong grounds for hope that God will save infants when we have not been able to do for them what we would have wished to do, namely, to baptize them into the faith and life of the Church.”
(“The hope of salvation for infants who die without being baptized” , International Theological Commission (2007))
I’ve talked about some of this before:
- “Our First Childbirth: Memories and a Few Thoughts” (August 30, 2025)
- “In Praise of Lilacs, Blue Sky and Rain” (May 29, 2021)
- “Spirit Photographs” (April 11, 2018)
- “Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Hope” (October 9, 2016)
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