My Remarks at Torvald's Funeral

On February 11, 2021 I gave birth to our still born son, Torvald Alistair. He has some genetic difficulties that caused him to pass away. These are my remarks at his funeral on February 26th. 

This pregnancy was hard (which turned out to be because of severe polyhydramnios, caused by Torvald's genetic difficulties), and yet every day I had a mantra I often repeated to myself as I fell asleep and as I woke up: I love this baby, I want this baby. I love you. I want you. And I did. I do. Three years ago when announcing Gareth's birth on social media I commented that we were just grateful that he was born healthy. Avram and I early on in our childbearing realized that we did not really care whether we had boys or girls, which is good as, in a phrase I always tell my children, “you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.” We would just say, like many other parents, “We just want our child to be healthy.” 

In early February I went to the hospital for early labor, and became aware that Torvald might have genetic problems, but they did not seem incompatible with life. And we thought, we don't need a healthy child, we just want a living child. And then, only three days after coming home from the hospital we went back again, this time in more aggressive early labor, to learn that Torvald had already passed, and that the smaller genetic difficulties were in fact insurmountable, and even had he lasted to be born alive would have died shortly anyway. And beyond our immediate grief, grief that lasted as Torvald was born, as he was laid on me and I held my son and wept, I knew, that ultimately God does not promise us boys or girls, he does not promise us healthy children, and he does not even promise us living children. 

What we are promised is what Jesus was given in Gethsemane; a mortal experience that will test us and try us beyond what we think we can bear, but we will not be left alone, we will not be left comfortless. Christ asked “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” Heavenly Father sent an angel to comfort Jesus, but notably did not remove the requirement for Christ to complete his heavenly commission to atone for all of His children. 

God did not give Torvald life, but we also have comfort. When Christ came to raise Lazarus from the dead Mary met him, and told him that if he had been there her brother would not have died. In her sorrow and grief Jesus met her, and in the shortest verse in scripture, but still full of meaning, “Jesus wept.” He wept with her even knowing that he would shortly raise her brother from the dead, and that she would be with him again. He did not mansplain this all to Mary, he did not tell her there was no need to cry because shortly she would see her brother alive. He just wept with her in her sorrow.

And I have felt the same about Torvald dying. I have felt the comfort of God comforting us, of all of your prayers carrying us in our grief, even while we know that we will be united as a family again after death, but that has not stopped us from crying and grieving that we are separate now.

Avram and I have long talked about how much we love the Church of Jesus Christ's doctrine of the plan of salvation, and not just the warm fuzzy parts, but even the hard parts that we have referred to as being a “cold comfort.” One such cold comfort is that we could not have had a true earthly, mortal experience without having a world where genetics do not always work, where we have mortal bodies that are subject to pain, disease, and death. Even through the almost overwhelming wave of pain on learning that our son had died because of these very fallen and mortal limitations, we felt the truth that this is a part of our mortal experience, and that God had not abandoned us but that he cared deeply, that we have a God who weeps with us, even while knowing that our mortal sojourn on earth is not long for any of us, even octogenarians, compared with our immortal existence. And it has been a comfort. 

Like Avram, I too have felt this great privilege of having Torvald in our lives, however briefly. But knowing that he is not in our family briefly, but forever, has been what has sustained us. Perhaps all we could offer him in the end was a flawed mortal body, but I have learned such a reverence for what an important part of our eternal progression having a mortal body is. Holding Torvald in my arms, seeing the tell-tall signs of genetics that didn't work on his face and body, I still felt at the same time such a reverence that he had a body at all. That even broken it was beautiful. We felt his spirit, and the Holy Spirit strongly in the birthing that was also his death. It is a comfort to know that our deepest sorrows and difficulties are not outside of the Spirit's reach. 

One third of the Heavenly Father's children rejected having physical bodies, rejected going through sorrow exactly like this. I cannot completely blame them – like Christ in Gethsemane I too want to retreat, want to call enough on this pain and suffering. But also like Christ, in my own much lesser way, I want to tell God, “Thy will be done.” 

I do not regret getting pregnant with Torvald, even knowing the tragedy we feel now, I know that God's will was done in sending us a son that was neither healthy nor could live. His becoming part of our family, including his death, is privilege and blessing I feel grateful and blessed to be called to bear. As a mother when I have carried my children I have seen myself as their protector, ushering them to their earthly existence in the only way possible for them to gain a physical body, for them to progress eternally from spirits to living mortals and eventually to eternal glory. But ultimately it is the Lord's position beyond mine to protect and usher our spirits, and I must rely on Him when what seems like the most fundamental of mothering actions does not have the outcome I have worked so hard for. Even though God's will takes us through our own Gethsemanes, Christ has redeemed all for us, and turned our sorrows to sweetness, our ashes to beauty. 

I miss Torvald, even having known him so little compared to the length of my life. I look forward to reuniting with him, and to the resurrection when we will all be made whole again, and when he can have a physical body that will fully function for his spirit. Until then, I am grateful for a loving godhead and a Heavenly Mother that can be with him, and love him in person in ways that I cannot. I am grateful for the Plan of Salvation that teaches me why hard things happen to us, that gives me comfort, even hard comfort, and helps me know that we can be together forever and that our earthly life is short, but our heavenly home is eternal.