Michelle Duggar on the Importance of Grieving After a Loss
It helps my heart to talk about my miscarriage of Jubilee. I know it's difficult sometimes for people to really know what to say, and I know I felt that way at times in the past when I realized that someone had lost a baby that they were carrying and I wasn't sure how to best console them. But I think being able to acknowledge that there was a little one -- a precious life -- helps. It definitely helps me when someone will say that they're sorry to hear about our little Jubilee.
It does my heart good in that regard because we miss her, and I feel like she was such a joyful part of our lives for 18 weeks, and we were so looking forward to meeting her. And then all the sudden for us to realize that all of those dreams were not going to come true, it just really made us realize how precious and valuable life is and how short it is.
These last couple of months have just been very precious in the fact that I have been able to grieve over the loss of all those dreams that I was looking forward to, just hoping to getting to spend time with her. There's a song written by Selah called "I Will Carry You," and it is the most beautiful song expressing from a mother's heart the love and the sadness of losing a baby while you're expecting. At times I've played that song two or three times a day and just sing to the Lord and then just cry and release the tears that I need to let go of . Because I think if we hold the grief in it's not going to help us to overcome and move on.
So I allow myself to cry and let it out, and it's been the same for my children. We were all getting ready for Jubilee; we had bought items like a baby walker and a little jumparoo because so much of our baby stuff had been worn out. And then to realize that it's not going to be used by her has been a hard reminder for everyone.
Sometimes one of the kids will come to me and they just need to let go of some of those emotions and they'll say, "Momma, I just need to talk to you" and I'll say, "I understand -- I understand what you're feeling and thinking."
This post was written by Michelle Duggar.
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