Perdita

Somewhere on this planet.......someone is experiencing a perdita (loss)........a loss of eyesight......a loss of a favorite object.....a loss of one's mind......a loss of a home......a loss of faith......a loss of a cherished loved one due to death......a loss of keys.....a loss of a friend to a misunderstanding or distance,.....or a loss of integrity.  By definition, loss means the state of no longer having something because it has been taken from you or destroyed. A loss could be from natural means or it could be due to outside influences.....so sometimes, one can try to prevent a loss, but other times, a loss is totally unexpected.

The type of loss which can have different grave effects on individual people is the loss of someone due to a death....tragic or natural.  For women, an even more devastating perdita is a miscarriage.  A miscarriage is a loss of a life unseen, or as the medical field defines, a miscarriage is a spontaneous abortion which is a harsh description.  The American Pregnancy Association describes a spontaneous abortion as a pregnancy that ends on its own, within the first 20 weeks of gestation.  There is no one reason for the occurrence of a miscarriage, but possible causes may be due to.....

• Hormonal problems, infections or maternal health problems
• Lifestyle (i.e. smoking, drug use, malnutrition, excessive caffeine and exposure to radiation or toxic substances)
• Implantation of the egg into the uterine lining does not occur properly
• Maternal age
• Maternal trauma
• Genetic reasons

 There are various types of miscarriages but the end result and affects on the mother are the same.  The woman realizes the loss, but the tragedy is in not knowing what the child would have looked like or how the child would have behaved.  The uniqueness of the child is not experienced by the mother who briefly housed a developing life within her. It doesn't matter what caused the miscarriage.  What matters is that a life formed within the mother.....As a sperm combined with an oocyte, a soul entered the zygote which develops from an 2-cell embryo to a morula to a blastocyst. The blastocyst (embryo) implants in the uterine lining by the fifth day after fertilization. By the 11th week, the embryo is identified as a fetus. This life forming process begins at a miraculous and microscopic level.  Changes in her body are the only signs that a life is developing in her womb.   The loss of this life also brings painful physical manifestations to the mother and creates an imaginable hole in the heart of the mother.  A mother loves her offspring from the time of conception.....sight unseen.
 

Yahweh says this: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamenting and weeping bitterly: it is Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. 

- Jeremiah 31

What does a mother do with this hole in her heart?  She mourns.  She cries water falls of tears.  From my personal experience, I live with the hole in my heart by placing my hope in Him (Hebrews 2).  God is the almighty healer, so I lean on His grace and mercy. I rely on Him for healing.   My first miscarriage.....my first perdita.....occurred 27 years ago and my heart is still healing....but my joy is more and my sorrow less.  I was truly by myself.  There was no one to share my turmoil....no one to listen to my story. Bearing this type of loss by yourself is indescribable.  God, my faith and guardian angel delivered me safely....otherwise, I would have lost my mind.  After I was married, I miscarried again on Good Friday of 2000, and then again in late 2001.  The pain was easier to bear with the last two miscarriages because my husband's faith lifted up my sorrow.  Each miscarriage occurred in the late embryo stage right at the end of the first trimester, and I chose to name each child.......Michal Grace (October 1985), Josie Blix (April 2000), and Leo James (November 2001).   Just as our Father in Heaven calls each us by name and knows our souls before each conception........I call each of my children in Heaven by name for my heart knows them.

 Lift up your eyes on high And see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, Not one of them is missing.

- Isaiah 40:26

Each of the three embryos had a soul.  They don't exist in my imagination.  Michal Grace, Josie Blix, and Leo James are real for they come to me at different times especially during prayer.  Before I miscarried Josie Blix, Mother Mary came to me with Josie on her lap.....Josie was not a blastocyst of cells.....She was a fully formed infant.  During a public rosary prayer event, all three of them found me in the crowd and began to poke me like my young live children would do to me to get my attention. I identify their presence also through a simple breeze where there wasn't one just before....or by blue butterflies flying around me.  Through the sorrow of their physical absence in my life, I have gained blessings.  My faith and belief in the TRUTH of God's Word and the power of the TRINITY continues to carry me.  I am a stronger person, but if I let go, then I begin to drown......so I continue to treasure their existence by holding their hands.   

  Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself.  

- Walter Anderson, American artist/writer

St. Raphael the Archangel, pray for my physical and spiritual healing.
St. Pio, pray for my unborn children.
St. Jude, pray for impossible cases.
St. Benedict, pray for those with kidney disease.
St. Therese the little flower, pray for my humility.
St. Florian, pray for the safety of all emergency responders and fire fighters.
St. Gregory, the Great, pray for the virtuous intentions of all teachers.
Dear Lord, please bless those who have chosen to love me.
May I bless those who have blessed me.  Amen.
- little petunia