Losing Collin:  When a Newborn Dies

I recently received a letter from a woman who lives in Southern California and is grieving the loss of her beloved grandson Collin, who died unexpectedly just 32 days after his birth.  I asked Patti if I could share her letter here, and she graciously consented.  What touched me about her letter – and broke my heart at the same time – was that it was the first time I had ever heard of a gift of passage that came to light after the death of a newborn.  The second thing that moved me was how Patti appropriated that gift.  Here is her letter:

Dear Amy,

I lost my first and only grandson, Collin James, when he was just 32 days old.

It was unexpected, SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).  My consequent search for relief from my pain led me to a lovely therapist who recommended I read your book.  The thought of a “gift” from my grandson who was so little and so dependent seemed elusive to me, so the book sat on my nightstand for quite some time.

But eventually my pain led me to whatever source might bring peace, so I read it.  As I read I began to look for things that may have been a gift from him; aside from the obvious things like love and joy that I had during the time he was here with us, I was at a loss to see any tangible gifts.

The gift came to me when I asked my daughter (Collin’s mommy) to send me all the pictures that she had taken of him as I was preparing a scrapbook. I was in utter shock when she sent pictures from the very night before he died, pictures of a one-month birthday party they had given him. I know of no one who has had a one-month birthday party for an infant, and in the tragedy of his death she had forgotten to tell me about it (I lived 400 miles away so I was not there). 

She explained to me that it was completely impromptu.  She called several friends last minute to come over, many who had not yet met Collin; they barbequed and sang “Happy Birthday.” She baked him a cake and wrote on it “Collin #1”.

So our gift from him is the comfort of knowing that he experienced a celebration in honor of his birth, the only celebration he would ever have.  And as his one year birthday approaches, it is a gift to me knowing that he had such an experience.  I miss him very much.

Thank you for your book; it helped me to see his life as a gift to all of us.

Patti

The Gift Matches

No one in my family had talked to Sarah in nearly two years.  She had moved to North Carolina and married a Marine, but no one attended her wedding.  This was no petty family grudge:  Sarah, who had lived with my mother, her grandmother, as a baby and as a teenager, came to her one June afternoon under the guise of a visit.  She left with several hundred dollars, stolen from my mother’s desk drawer.  There’s no greater heartache for a grandmother than to have something taken from her that she would have freely given, especially by someone with whom she shared an especially close bond, more mother than grandmother.  To make matters worse, my mother was recovering from a fall with a broken wrist.  To be taken advantage when she was already vulnerable was devastating to her.

My mother had no contact with Sarah after that day.  Mom had always been the one person who believed in Sarah when no one else did, so it was devastating to Sarah, too.

Just before Christmas last year, Sarah called me from North Carolina.  It was the first time anyone in our family had heard from her since she stole the money from Mom.  She was crying because she knew my mother had suffered a stroke and was convinced that if Mom died, Sarah would not be permitted to attend the funeral.  She also didn’t want Mom going to her grave without knowing that Sarah loved her and was sorry for what she had done.  Sarah had not always been forthright, but I was genuinely moved by her sincerity.  I knew she was contrite.  I told her I would call my mom and give her Sarah’s number.  She was in tears:  “You mean Grandma might call me tonight?” I told her I couldn’t guarantee it but would try.  (Mom had gotten very angry with me on the phone one night when I tried to give her an update on Sarah, which I had heard from my sister, Sarah’s mother, and forbade me from doing so in the future because it made the symptoms of her stroke worse.) I called my mom right away and told her how contrite Sarah was and gave her Sarah’s phone number.  Mom was noncommittal on the phone, said she had to think about it.  A few hours later Mom called elated that she and Sarah had talked.  She had forgiven Sarah and told her that she loved her.  They talked two more times over the next week or so.

Sarah did not want Mom going to her grave with this heartbreaking issue unresolved.  No one could have anticipated that it was Sarah, just 21 years old, who was near death.  She was found dead in her home of an accidental prescription drug overdose on January 16, just six days before Heath Ledger’s death of the same cause made headlines.  Sarah’s death did not make headlines. 

It did leave a mother, a husband, a sister and a family devastated in its wake. 

Two of my sisters broke the news to my mother in person, my mother who was the one person who had always believed in Sarah.  Even with the shock, my mother immediately recognized the one thing that would see her through – this unexpected reconciliation with Sarah that occurred just a few weeks before.

It has been seven months since Sarah died, but there was one more gift of passage left for my mother to receive.  This one arrived in the mail.  Sarah’s husband had been sorting through her things and found a letter she had written to my mom dated December 16 but never mailed.  He sent it to my mother, and she received it yesterday.  It was a beautiful card, extolling my mother for her unconditional love, which Sarah was just now fully appreciating.  Below the card’s preprinted message was Sarah’s addition, scrawled in her childlike handwriting.  As she approached the new year, she wanted it to be a new beginning for her and my mother too:  “It can be a fresh start.  I love you, Grandma,” she wrote. In the letter Sarah included a money order for $20, promising that every two weeks she would send an additional $20 until she had paid my mother every cent she stole from her.  Sarah had already asked for forgiveness and reconciled with my mom, which was a true gift.  But this was something more.  If my mother had ever doubted Sarah’s sincerity in making things right, she had no need for doubt now. 

The offense had been taking money, the gift of passage - giving it back.  My mom had been the one who always believed in Sarah for a reason.

Keys That Unlock

Thursday night when my mother was here, I accidentally flushed my entire set of car keys down the toilet.  (I was really tired!) We had to replace our toilet several months ago, and this is the most high-powered one they make, which explains why it sucked my keys down so quickly.  I called the plumber who installed the monster, and he said the keys were long gone and he didn’t anticipate any clogging.

A few hours later the toilet began clogging.  This was especially a problem because my mom was here, and this was the only bathroom she could use (she cannot negotiate stairs).  We called the plumber back to ask for a referral, as he is retired.  Instead, he arrived at our house in minutes.  This man has cancer, has recently adopted his four grandchildren, and he just found out that day his pregnant granddaughter’s baby has Down’s syndrome.  He was also leaving for a trip out of state in the morning.  Still, he came over at 8 pm to fix our toilet so that my mother would have it to use.  He not only fixed the clogging, but retrieved my keys.  At 9 pm when he got ready to leave, he refused to take payment.  We insisted, but he said, “I’ve already had dinner.  What else can I ask for?” If I hadn’t known he was a real person, I would have thought we were entertaining an angel.

Because he wouldn’t take payment, I inscribed a copy of Gifts of Passage to him.  He called this morning, just having finished it.  This is what he told me:  For 30 years he has hidden this story in his heart.  In the early 70’s, his seven-year-old daughter was diagnosed with cancer and hospitalized.  She was in her hospital bed in the pediatric ward one night under an oxygen tent, and he was lying in the bed next to her.  All of the sudden, he saw a small group of children dancing around her hospital bed.  He looked at Tina, who was nonchalant.  “It’s okay, Daddy,” she said.  “Just lay down.  Rest.” He lay back down, and the children continued dancing around her bed.  Robert got up, went into the hallway, tried to wake up with some coffee, and told the nurse what he had seen.  She peeked in the room and saw nothing.  He climbed back into Tina’s hospital bed, and the children were still there, dancing.

The next day Tina insisted he buy her a princess watch McDonald’s was promoting.  He told her he would of course get her the watch as he had promised, but now he wanted to be with her.  “No,” she insisted.  “You have to go get the watch now.” When he returned with the watch, she was gone.  She had sent him away to spare him her passage.  The watch was left as evidence of her love and concern for him. 

For 30 years he has tried to tell this story, but everyone, including his pastor, has been dismissive of it.  He called to tell me because he knew I would understand.  What relief he feels knowing there were children awaiting Tina’s entrance into heaven and that his not being there was her gift to him.  He’s now at peace, as he battles his own cancer.

Something neither of us would have known except for a set a car keys accidentally flushed down a toilet.

*****

Please feel free to email Amy Hollingsworth at or visit her at http://www.amyhollingsworth.com.

Look, Ma, No Hands!

I’m not sure why, but we never lose the need to please our parents, to seek their approval, no matter how old we get.  It’s been a long time since I was a child learning to ride her bicycle without training wheels, but I did have a “look, Ma, no hands!” experience last week.  My mother flew to Fredericksburg for her yearly visit, and we were making our usual trek to Borders so that she could stockpile her reading material until her next time in town. 

I was hoping a few copies of Gifts of Passage would still be sitting on the shelf so that I could show them off to her.  Just a few copies, that’s all I was asking.

I started toward the section of the bookstore that housed my little book when my eye caught a red-bordered sign centered atop a large display.  My eyes read the letters, my brain transcribed them into words, then my knees buckled. It’s possible I wet my pants a little. 

This is what I saw.

I ran to get my mother, who slowly (because she is recovering from a stroke) made her way to the spectacle.  I was red faced, sweaty, proud like when I first learned to ride my bike. 

Look, Ma, no hands.

Face to Face

I haven’t left the house much in the last two weeks because of the radio interviews, so today I took the kids to Borders for some coffee and browsing.  We had been there for some time when I saw a woman in the “grief” section of the store (which is pitiful, just a small shelf tucked under “Recovery").  I asked her if she was looking for a book on grieving, and she said, yes, she had a dear elderly friend whose wife had just passed away and he was lost.  So I walked over to the “Religion” section and picked up Gifts of Passage.  I told her what it was about, how I thought the stories would be helpful to her friend, and that I had written it.  She began to cry, and then marched the book up to the counter, paid for it, and brought it back to me to inscribe to her dear friend.  She started to cry again and said she was sure it was divine intervention.  We exchanged names, and I gave her my email address in case her friend had any questions for me.

As much as I love doing the radio interviews (and I do!), this is by far the most rewarding part – meeting someone’s immediate need, face to face.

The Nature of Gifts

I’ve often had dreams about my dad since he died, but this one was different.  In this dream, neither he nor I was the focal point, the main character.  The setting for the dream is a modern classroom, the type with comfortable chairs instead of desks and whiteboards instead of blackboards.  My dad is standing up front, as if he is the teacher, in the suit jacket he only wore on special occasions.  A few days ago I found a photo of the two of us at the reception following his wife’s funeral, an image that likely sparked the dream attire.

As the dream unfolds, there is a single row of chairs facing Dad in the classroom, and although I am aware that each chair holds a family member, I can only see one of the faces.  I only see my brother Brandon, a few chairs down from where I sit.  I was already out of college when my father married Brandon’s mother and adopted him at age four.  They had some good years together, when Dad faithfully attended Brandon’s baseball games and toted him to weekly Royal Ranger meetings.  There was also strife between them, the kind kindled when two men vie for the affection of the same woman.  But Brandon was a little boy, not a man, and Dad often forgot that.

In the dream Brandon is distraught, leaning forward in his chair, head bowed.  He is asking questions of Dad.  He doesn’t understand why Dad treated him the way he did, why their relationship had to be so antagonistic, why Dad had to die on Brandon’s birthday.  Dad listens to Brandon and then walks to where I am sitting and stands directly in front of me.  I am so overcome by his liveness that I barely hear what he is saying.  His eyes are radiant, his face flushed.  The last time I saw him he was a pallid shell.  I stay perfectly still for fear moving might make him disappear. 

Dad stops in front of me and says, in response to Brandon’s questions:  “I want to be remembered the way Amy wrote about me.  That’s how I want to be remembered.”

The dream ends before I have a chance to respond, but if I had I would have told Dad that Brandon needs his own healing, separate from mine.  This is a dimension of dying gifts I am only just realizing:  gifts of passage are not blanket gifts that can be swept over all who grieve for that particular person.  A gift of passage is not a universal donor.  Each person needs his own gift to heal. 

Brandon is getting married in a few weeks, and perhaps that’s why he is the focal point of the dream.  I wonder if facing his wedding day without his mother and father is causing an internal struggle.

I think of him throughout the day, whisper prayers for him under my breath. I want his questions answered, too.  I want his gift found.  It will be different from my gift, but it will be exactly what Brandon needs to heal.

*****

Please feel free to email Amy Hollingsworth at or visit her at http://www.amyhollingsworth.com.

“Love … respect … I always knew”

It’s bittersweet to write a book about your father and then not have him around to be proud of you.  Of course this book couldn’t have been written if he were alive because it begins and ends with the story of his death; his death was my reason for writing the book in the first place.  Still, I didn’t anticipate how it would feel to write so vulnerably about him and then be met with his silence.

Amazon sent out preordered copies of Gifts of Passage last Monday, and Thursday night my Uncle Bob called.  I wasn’t feeling well, so I let the machine catch it:  “Amy?  Uncle Bob.  I’m delighted, charmed, moved by your book.  Halfway through it, that’s all I’ve read.  It’s unbe-,” he interrupted himself, “it is just strictly superb.” I appreciated his kind words, as this was no idle review.  Uncle Bob was my dad’s oldest brother, and they had taken very different paths.  My dad dropped out of college after a semester, and Uncle Bob had a Ph.D. in English and had taught at Notre Dame.  But my dad never envied Bob; he was proud of his distinguished older brother.

The next morning I called Uncle Bob back, and he continued his review:  “The book is haunting, beautifully written ….” I deeply appreciated his generous words, but they didn’t impact me nearly as much as his goodbye.  As he was hanging up the phone, he said, “Amy, I love you dearly, and I respect you so much.  I did before you started writing books.  I always knew you had this in you, and now the world knows what I already knew.”

“Love … respect … I always knew” – a daughter couldn’t ask for anything more.  And now, by proxy, I knew how my dad would have felt.

*****

My Dad (left) with his brother Bob in August, 2003, a year before he passed away. 

Gifts of Passage: Chapter 1 Download

Please enjoy this free sample excerpt from Gifts of Passage:

Gifts of Passage, Chapter 1 (PDF)