Prelude to Vulnerability

This poem is dedicated to Rachel Anne Goodson, who was stillborn on March 31, 1982. I wrote it around mid April 1982, while grieving for her. Every baby that cried would break my heart, but then it started to help me. At the graveside service, my sister let me hold her one-month-old little girl (my precious niece). It has been 24 years, but every year on my baby’s birthday, I ask God to hold her in his arms and tell her I love her.

Sadly, many people have experienced a stillbirth. Yet no one writes about it. There is absolutely no literature or books on how to cope with something so tragic. I feel that it is my time to heal by sharing my feelings. Hopefully, this in turn will help others.

When I left the hospital with empty arms, the grief was so great that I felt it would consume me. I could not understand why this happened. No one had any answers for me. I felt emotionally dead, and that God had abandoned me. That is so far from the truth. I just had to reach out to Him. When I was at my lowest point, sitting by my bedroom window, I prayed that God would give me the strength to face each day, and that someday I would know what it feels like to hold a living, precious child in my arms that belonged to me. But at that moment, at the age of eighteen, I had to deal with my feelings. I prayed that the Lord would help me cope with my baby’s death. To go through the grieving process and make it a reality so I could accept the truth and go on living.

Occasionally, the Lord puts someone in my path that is hurting from the same experience. I just tell that person that 24 years ago, the Lord sent a preacher my way who was not only hurting over the recent stillbirth of his own child, but was sent to comfort me. We both sat in that empty hospital room and cried and prayed. I could feel God’s presence there. I was not alone, and neither are they.

My prayers uttered by the window that day were answered. Today I have three precious daughters. I have told them about their sister in Heaven, and occasionally they ask me about her. I just tell them all that I know, and that for now, Jesus is holding her in His arms for us.

He’ll hold you, too. He loves you so. If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, just ask Him into your heart. He’s listening…

Karen (Goodson) Gnoose
October 2, 2006


A Definition Of Vulnerability



I sit by the window
staring at my narrow horizions
in the pastel sunset.

Nothing moves me...
only thoughts of things
I am unable to see.

Fantasies are in my mind's eye,
flirting with reality.

Time slips by...
and those fantasies
become...memories.

I sit by the window
and I cry.

Karen Goodson



this one by my sister in law was in memory of her still born daughter