Thank you for your attendance today and for all your love, prayers, and support for us and for our daughter Vivian. The kindness we’ve received from friends, family, fellow parishioners, medical professionals, and even strangers has truly given us the strength to endure and grow and smile these past months. I have been told on many occasions that Vivian has touched the lives of many people, many people whom we have never met. My wife and I have no idea how far her story has reached. Vivian now may. And that is a comforting thought.
Vivian Marie has joined her older sibling Francis in heaven. Francis was our first child, who left us before his tenth week in the womb. Jonathan is our second child, whose life was made possible by Francis’ early journey. Vivian is our third child. We learned the Wednesday of Holy Week that Vivian had a fatal condition called anencephaly, and that if she lived to term, she would not live long. A few minutes, perhaps. A few hours. A few days at most. Vivian’s tale had taken a tragic turn.
We were gifted by many words of love and support when we made Vivian’s diagnosis public. One comment has especially stuck with me, and I wish to center my words to you today on what was said to me then. A friend praised our decision to give Vivian the best life we could, and he said that love has no time constraints. Love has no time constraints. That statement captures why we yearned with all our hearts to meet our daughter and why we are so very grateful for the heavenly fifteen hours of life with which she and we were graced.
The common response to anencephaly is a procedure we wouldn’t have considered, and I think Genece would have slugged anyone who suggested it. Our reason for not taking that route, for instead choosing to experience the months of heartbreak and brokenness was very simple: love has no time constraints. A few minutes, a few hours, a few days, no time but that lived in the womb? We would take what we were given. Love has no time constraints.
And so we took each day at a time, taking bittersweet joy in every kick, roll, and turn Vivian made in the womb. We kept the name we had chosen before the diagnosis: Vivian, which means full of life. We recorded each sonogram and watched intently as Vivian seemed to wave at us or give us a thumbs-up. We cheered her as she practiced breathing. We giggled when she had the hiccups. Vivian was very active in the womb, so active we’d never have guessed she had a fatal condition. The girl hardly slept. And she loved chocolate. When Genece ate chocolate before bed, she ensured that Vivian would keep her awake for a few hours. Vivian was also very strong. A few weeks before her delivery, she pressed out her foot so firmly that I could feel the individual toes and the ridges between them. So strong, yet so fragile.
We made a decision early on to explain Vivian’s condition to our son in terms he might understand. We asked him what he wanted to do with Vivian when she was born. He said he wanted to teach her how to play with garbage trucks. He got his wish. I wasn’t sure for a few moments whether she was alive following the delivery, but, as the nurse came to check her pulse, she let out a loud cry, her only one so far as I know. We were all delighted. “That answers my question,” our nurse exclaimed. Vivian would live for a little over 15 hours. In that short, sweet time, she taught us much about herself. She liked rocking in the rocking chair. She blew bubbles and made precious baby noises, one of which sounded exactly like “Mommy.” She cooed and rooted and tried to nurse. She didn’t seem to mind being held by multiple people, but she clearly preferred the touch and embrace of her mother. She gripped my finger with a passion for protection. She was ticklish, especially in her darling little flat feet, and she had a birthmark on her bottom. I wonder if she would have bounced when she walked.
In the early morning hours her breathing became more irregular and her heart-rate increased. She struggled, but she made no expression of pain or misery. Her look and utterances were more like those of an athlete who knows she’s nearing the end of her energy, knows she lacks the energy to see her to her goal, but runs on, determined to give everything. Neither my wife nor I will ever forget those last moments of her life as we held her in our arms and wept and consoled her with insufficient words. We knew when we had reached the point of no return. We held Vivian and held our breath as Vivian, holding her rosary, breathed her last breath. Her soul left her body, her body ceased its animation and relaxed as if in slow motion, and her life concluded like a soft, peaceful end of a sad, glorious song.
Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio writes in her book, The Humility of God, “God’s tears glisten on the fragile human face, the flawed creature who stumbles through the world in search of goodness. God is with us and his glory radiates when we strive to love by bearing the wounds of love. The crucified Christ is risen and glorified. God’s tears are mixed with joy.”
My wife and I have felt and haven’t felt God’s presence in a way perhaps similar to the way Vivian has felt and hasn’t felt our presence. I don’t know how aware she was or to what extent her actions were more than involuntary reactions. Still, we have made ourselves present to her by suffering with her, and we have loved her by suffering with her. God has been present to us by suffering with us, and He has loved us by suffering with us. God’s tears glistened in Vivian’s fragile, bruised, beautiful baby face.
I have found that our modern world can tend to imagine God as a cosmic engineer of the universe, preventing a catastrophe over here and allowing, or causing, a disaster over there. This image has never resonated with me, but that doesn’t mean I envision God as distant, aloof, uncaring, or watching us from a distance. I believe God is actively involved in the messiness of creation, but not in a way of power (in the sense we commonly use the term), but rather in the ways of love. As Sister Delio says, God humbly bends down to embrace and suffer with his creation. The Cross is an image of God’s love and humility. Vivian is, in a different way, also an image of God’s love and humility.
In Mark Helprin’s novel, Memoir from Antproof Case, the narrator summarizes the lessons of his long life. He writes:
“I was graduated from the finest school, which is that of the love between a parent and a child. Though the world is constructed to serve glory, success, and strength, one loves one’s parents and one’s children despite their failings and weaknesses—sometimes even more on account of them. In this school you learn the measure not of power, but of love; not of victory, but of grace, not of triumph, but of forgiveness. You learn as well, and sometimes, as I did, you learn early, that love can overcome death, and that what is required of you in this is memory and devotion. Memory and devotion. To keep your love alive you must be willing to be obstinate, and irrational, and true, to fashion your entire life as a construct, a metaphor, a fiction, a device for the exercise of faith. Without this, you will live like a beast with nothing but an aching heart. With it, your heart, though broken, will be full, and you will stay in the fight until the very last.”
My wife and I are broken and will remain broken, but our hearts are, we hope, full of love, and we will hope and strive to keep our faith alive. Daily we will think of Vivian. Daily we will ask her to pray for us and to intercede for us. Our love for her and her love for us was not constrained by time, nor is it now, nor will it ever be. Our love knows no time constraints. Indeed, our love knows eternity, and because our love knows eternity, our love overcomes death.
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