Baby Gabriel Only Lived 10 Days After Birth, but His Life Proves Every Child Is Precious

I talked the talk. Every life is a gift, and worthy of defense. We are not promised a particular quality of life, or a number of days that we will get to live. We are only promised that our lives are God-given and their length, their demise, is not for us to determine. These are truths that I have espoused since the days I felt myself called to be an active part of the pro-life movement.

Then one day I was asked to walk the walk. In a cold, sterile ultrasound room a doctor – Not even my doctor, but some stand-in – shattered the world that I knew when she told me my child, gender then unknown, had a condition that she described as “incompatible with life.” My mother cried, my ex-husband held my hand in stoic silence, and my mind raced to try to keep up with what the doctor was saying. My child, the 21 week old fetus whom I would come to know as my son, had anencephaly. If he were born alive, he would die shortly thereafter . . .

Gabriel Michael Gerard Cude was born on June 10, 2011. His name, Gabriel, was chosen for its symbolism. Of course, Gabriel is the archangel known as the messenger angel who delivered the news of the impending birth of the Savior of Man. Since his diagnosis, Gabriel represented a message that I could only speak, but that he was living: Every life matters. Gabriel means “God is my strength,” and I know that when I was weak, it was God who carried me . . .

For ten days Gabriel clung to this world. On that tenth day, through tears my ex-husband and I told our son we loved him, that he had given us more than we could have asked for, and that we knew it was time for him to go. In our arms, Gabriel took his last breath. We washed and dressed and held his lifeless body until the funeral home’s representative appeared to take our son away. His tiny body was respectfully placed in a car and we watched as it backed out of our driveway and disappeared at the end of the street . . .

I have since remarried, and so has Gabriel’s father. We each have little girls now with our respective spouses. Life is good – beyond good. Life is better than I ever thought it could be when I was in my moments of despair. That nurse was right. We were three of the luckiest people she’d ever have the chance to meet, though happiness hasn’t looked like I expected. Happiness looks like my husband, and my beautiful little girl Eden, and the knowledge that Gabriel’s father may have found the same thing with someone else, on the other side of the country. We are only promised life, not days, not outcomes, not ease, and not happiness. We chose to make the most out of what was promised. We chose life. (Read more from “Baby Gabriel Only Lived 10 Days After Birth, but His Life Proves Every Child Is Precious” HERE)

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