Louise Loses a Child

Leta's nephew--Robert Wescotte, son of her sister Louise and Hiram Wescotte died unexpectedly. He was only 44 years old, and Louise took her son’s death very hard. Subsequently, Leta spent many hours sitting with her and trying to be a comfort.

“I always thought I would go first,” Louise told her. “No one thinks their child will die before them. It just isn’t natural.”

“I know, I know,” Leta said, sitting close to her. Leta believed her. She had witnessed her own daughter-in-law experience the loss of a child and suffer from the uncertainty of life because of it. In her own life, she had lived through the death of two beloved husbands from which she never thought she would recover.

Louise gripped her arm tightly. “No, you don’t understand. I feel Robert’s death deep inside of me. In here,” Louise stressed, putting her other hand on her womb. “This is where he came from. This part of me has gone with him. I feel empty inside. Totally empty, like a big part of me is gone.”

Fortunately, Louise wasn’t alone. Her husband Hiram was experiencing his own kind of grief, but he was there, as well as their daughter Little Leta, a grown woman, who had never married and still lived with her parents. Even though Little Leta was not much of a cook or housekeeper, with her Aunt Leta’s help, they managed to keep the family fed and the house maintained.

One evening after she had been with Louise for the better part of a day, Leta was sitting at home with her husband Richard. They had eaten their supper, and Leta cleaned up the kitchen. She had hardly said a word from the time he picked her up.

“Are you all right, Leta?” he asked, cutting through her detachment.

“Just thinking,” she answered.

“Thinking or worried?” her husband persisted gently.

“It’s Louise.”

“What happened today?”

Leta took a deep breath and then exhaled. She turned toward her husband for the first time since they started the conversation.

“She was in the living room, Hiram was outside. I was in the kitchen getting supper. Little Leta was at school for some reason or other. I started humming a hymn, you know, as I do when I’m doing housework. I didn’t think I was that loud. But at one point I turned and nearly shrieked. There was Louise, standing in the doorway, and she looked furious. Her face was red. She was tense, and held her hands in fists. Of course, when I saw her, I stopped humming. She was glaring at me. ‘No singing!’ she ordered. I think I put my hands up and backed away. She was like a rabid animal.

Richard moved from his chair to beside her on the sofa, putting one arm across her shoulder.

“That sounds pretty awful.”

“There’s more, Richard,” Leta added, her heart growing heavier. She took a long pause, and he waited for her to speak. “She says she’s not sure she can believe in God any more.”

Leta took a deep breath.

“’God hates me, and I’m done with Him.’ She actually said that.”

“She’s just hurting. I’m sure she didn’t really mean it.”

Leta pulled away from her husband and looked at him.

“You don’t know her the way I do, Richard. I felt it in my heart. She meant it.”

“She just needs time. That’s all,” he said.

They looked at each other for a few minutes, and then Leta softened and returned to her prior place leaning into her husband.

“It’s a bad situation,” Richard commented. “She’s going to say and do all kinds of things. You already know that. And I am feeling badly for her. I don’t know how I’d react if I lost a child.”