Allison's Story

I mentioned once that a lady named Allison had reached out to me in the first days of our loss of Kaitlyn. Going back, I feel like I did not finish telling the story of our friendship and how much she meant to me.

     I went back in my emails, and Allison had emailed me on September 26, 8 days after we lost Kaitlyn:

Hi Amy!

My name is Allison and I was given your name by Kristen. I attend Hope as well…and I was so sorry to hear about your recent loss. 5 years ago, we encountered the same thing with our firstborn. At 37 weeks, I learned he was no longer with us even though 2 days before ,his sonogram showed a perfectly healthy little guy. We have had a journey since then, but through God’s unfailing love, I was able to hold onto Hope. Literally…that is why we started attending Hope ( just because of the name) …because that was all I had at the time.

I would LOVE to meet with you when or if you feel up to it. One of the things I searched for after my loss was someone to talk to. My pastor sent me to someone who had recently gone through a loss…but they had lost theirs at 12 weeks, not 37. Granted, a loss is HUGE but I felt alone in finding someone closer to my situation.

I feel that I was allowed this journey so that I COULD help others. When or if you are ever ready, I would love to talk, let you talk, cry, sob…or whatever else. Hope to talk to you soon! In the meantime, I am praying for your peace and for your strength to hold on to hope. There is hope! We have 2 beautiful healthy children now.

Hopefully we will get to talk soon,

       When I first read Allison's words, I burst into tears. Finally, someone had come out of the darkness to say first, that they knew what I was going through, and second, that there was hope for other children in the future. I couldn't even tell Alex what I had read, I just spun the computer screen around for him to read it himself. Suddenly, I wasn't alone.
       Since that email, we had talked back and forth a few times, and eventually we were able to meet for coffee one Sunday afternoon. We met at a Starbucks close to the church, and she told me the story of Tanner.
       Her story, like so many others that I have heard since then, was that they lost him suddenly, with no time to prepare. She listened as I cried through Kaitlyn's story, barely 2 weeks out from losing her. I asked her questions, the deep, personal kinds about grief and how you manage to keep breathing after going through this. She shared her pain with me, but also gave me that glimpse of hope: she had two healthy kids after Tanner, one boy and one girl. She laughed a little as she told me about her second pregnancy, which was also a little boy, who they ended up naming Tate. Without disclosing too much of her privacy, both of her boys had the initials T.L.C., which I loved! She laughed as she said that she had prayed and wept for a child so badly after losing Tanner, and then Tate came along and he was just a pistol. One of those boys that you could never hope to (or want to) contain.
      "I believe that God allowed this to happen to Tanner so that I could eventually share his story with others, with you, and to encourage you that God is faithful and He will restore your family," she had said to me at the end of our conversation.

        Even then, I looked at Allison, the original "Hope Mom" in my life before I even knew about Hope Mommies, and I knew that is what I wanted my grief to look like. As much as it hurt, and still hurts, Allison was 5 years out from her loss and using Tanner's story for nothing but good. She walked through, in my opinion, one of the worst forms of loss on the planet and yet she still found hope. She set the example for me for what I wanted to look like in 5 years. I wanted to be that beacon of truth and hope in the incredibly dark world of infant loss.
       Periodically, Allison would text me every now and then to check in on me and let me know she was thinking about me and praying for me. I let her know when I was pregnant, and like all the women who understand, she completely empathized with the dual feelings of joy and pain. She understood, never assumed or asked anything else of me, but was always around like the big sister that had moved away to college.