Bringing Forth Episode 11: "He was born during planting season and died during harvest" Diane Bingham on losing a child

In today's episode, our guest Diane Bingham, shares about losing an infant and raising her two daughters amid the reality of that loss.  The beauty of her prayer and her connection to the earth and her spouse speak volumes.

It was an honor to interview her, to know her child. I hope you will be honored as you listen.

Anyway, Today’s episode is about the death of a child. 

It is tender. 

There are tears from me and my guest.

It is beautiful and sad and profound and above all it was an honor to sit with my guest today.

Please know though, that it might be hard.

My Dad had 12 brothers and sisters.  

So growing up I had loads of aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Now I have loads of aunts, uncles, cousins, cousin in laws, first cousins once removed so on and so forth.

My Dad is the only one of his generation to die so far.  He died 15 years ago when he was 51 years old.

For my siblings and i we didn’t know if we belonged with his family.  Were we still part of that side of the family if he was dead? Did we still get to be at things?  Every family event was hard, emotional and fraught with our (or my) sense of not belonging.

Maybe a decade or so ago my great big family started having a family reunion every other year. The first year that my siblings and spouses and such decided to go I had a hard time.  My Dad’s siblings are reminders of the kind of person my father was (a good one) and a reminder of what I have lost.

I have a hard time not being jealous of my cousins. On one hand I wish people would talk openly about how much it sucks he is dead and how awesome he was and also I wish someone would love me as well as my Dad loved me.

Anyway, I remember being on the lodge porch at this state park having a family potluck meal. With a plateful of food I was trying to figure out where to place my body and my children’s bodies.  Feeling vulnerable and tender and not sure where I belonged I ended up next to my Aunt Diane and my Uncle Mike.  At some point in our chatting, probably about weather, I realized that they too knew what it was like to grieve. THey knew what it was like to walk into a family gathering and have your pain be in everyones awareness and no one’s discussion.  I realized that they knew loss.  In my accidentally bold way,  I dove in- Tell me, I asked, “What was Justin like?” 

Justin, is my cousin.  A dark haired little baby with a serious disposition, who was born in the spring of 1986 and died later that fall.  I was young when he was born.  In the years since i Have asked about JUstin, but moreover, I have felt a deeper sense of the way that grief is part of the unspoken grayspace in life.  I have felt the way that people survive, mangage and sometimes even thrive all while carrying the tremendous load of grief with them.  For today’s guest, all in while being accompanied by God.

Today’s guest is my dear Aunt Diane.  She is perhaps,of my Dads siblings the most similar.  She is Justin’s mother.  She is also the parent of Jill and Jennifer as well as the spouse of Mike.  She is a farmer, a midwesterner, a white, straight, cis gender Catholic.