Tidings of Comfort and Joy

This week, two premature babies who were here at GLA for assistance died. One boy and one girl.

The boy came to GLA a few weeks ago. His mommy died, but his daddy wanted to keep him. I saw his dad talking to the orphanage director, Dixie, when he dropped his son off.

I never held him, but I saw him around the place a lot. There is a nurse here named Stephanie who really took him under her wing. She nurtured the little boy tenderly and compassionately, she held him in a little baby carrier, meticulously fed him his bottle. He was very malnourished, and his skin was shriveled and dried out.

I first heard something was wrong with him when I was eating lunch on the day he died. The nurses and staff were talking concernedly about him. Usually we go back up to the Toddler House at around 7:00, but when I have opportunities to stay longer with my babies I take them. That day, we stayed longer. I had a lovely time with some of my babies, but I knew that up in the NICU, he was dying. At around 9:00, I went upstairs to the NICU. It was very hot in there – Molly, one of the staff, was holding him with a heating pad. Thirteen other babies slept peacefully in the room. There were lots of mosquitoes. I got bit bad.

It was quiet in the room other than the hum of the oxygen machine that the little boy was hooked up to. He fought hard. They thought he was gone three times, but each time he rebounded. I do not know the minute he left our world. But I knew it had happened when Stephanie reached over and shut the oxygen machine off. The room was silent. Thirteen babies peacefully slept. It was about ten o'clock, and time for their bottles. I walked throughout the room with the other nannies, picking up sleeping babies and feeding them their bottles.

It was late when we got home, but I wasn't tired. I played music. I played Christmas music. Reminder of another baby born so long ago. The melody of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" floated through my room. The melody seemed fitting. It's not a victorious, joyful melody. It's a haunting, solemn one.

God rest ye merry, gentlemen


Let nothing you dismay


Remember, Christ, our Savior


Was born on Christmas day


To save us all from Satan's power


When we were gone astray


O tidings of comfort and joy,


Comfort and joy


O tidings of comfort and joy

Yet despite the eerie sadness of the tune, it ushers in tidings of comfort and joy. Tidings of comfort and joy to a world where babies, the tiniest and most innocent of beings, live for a few days and then die. And so sorrowfully we sing tidings of comfort and joy. 

The little girl would die the next day. She had been at GLA for some time, and although her mother did not speak much French, I said hello to her each time I walked into the NICU, and I was able to have a few conversations with her while she fed her baby girl, using the other nannies as interpreters. She was a beautiful woman, and I loved her smile. The news of this little girl's death was not unexpected, but that did naught to lessen the profound sadness and heartbreaking wrongness of her death.

Now to the Lord sing praises,


All you within this place,


And with true love and brotherhood


Each other now embrace;


This holy tide of Christmas


All other doth deface.


O tidings of comfort and joy,


Comfort and joy


O tidings of comfort and joy.

Sin runs deep and far and wide in this world, leaving destruction and death in its path, but we have a reason to sing praises to the Lord. To embrace each other in brotherhood. To usher in tidings of comfort and joy.

Stephanie with the baby boy.