There is no foot so small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world.
My wife and I lost our first child, our first daughter Mary Margaret in April of 2016. Up until that point, my personal experiences with loss and suffering had been concepts only briefly encountered through second hand stories or insignificant losses.
We lost a lot with Mary Margaret. We lost a normal pregnancy, we lost the joy of a healthy baby, we lost the future as parents of beautiful little girl.
We have gained much though.
It’s hard to put into words but Sara and I have gained more of each other. I have seen parts of her soul that as her husband I cherish deeply. I’m more in love with Sara today after having gone through a pain that no parent should experience. I have seen her heart break, and come back to life as we try to pick up the pieces and tell Mary Margarets story.
As we tell her story, and ours, we start to see a community rise up around us. From our friends and family that also have angel babies to our church family reaching their arms around us and holding us as we cry.
We have gained hope.
Hope that we have a Father in Heaven who loves us with out conditions, and in that hope we can look at the journey we have before us and know that when we are ready, we can grow our family to include a rainbow baby to be a little brother or sister to our angel baby.
When we found out about the Hope Garland we knew this was the perfect representation of our little bluebonnet. The colors pink and navy were part of our wedding and mean a lot to us as a couple. Our Hope Garland is hanging in our bedroom wrapped around the first Hogan family of three photo. For the theme of Loss I knew exactly what story I wanted to tell and what picture I wanted to take.
If you have read this far. Thank you. It means the world to me, and if you want to know more about Mary Margarets story, please look at Mary Margarets Footprints for more information.
