Healing Through Stories: A Book for Families Grieving After Baby Loss

By Guest Writer Theoni Bell

It sounds trite to say stories are powerful, even if it is true. The obvious is now cliche – that stories have the power to heal, inspire, and unify. In my experience, this has never been truer than after I lost a child. When I delivered my daughter stillborn and almost died, writing was a natural way to cope. 

While I was recovering in the hospital, my husband and daughter dropped off a beautiful new journal, and I set to work writing the story of my daughter’s 27-week life. I could not think of anything else, and I wanted to hold onto her with my words. 

Other people’s stories were healing too. In those first weeks after our loss, hundreds of mothers reached out online and in our homeschool group. I heard new stories of baby loss almost every day. I never felt alone, and I learned how to move forward. 

I eventually read the letters of St. Zelie Martin, which detailed her intense grief and strong faith as she endured the loss of 4 children. I read a middle-grade novel with a subplot that included processing the loss of a newborn sibling. I read poetry and personal stories written by fellow Catholics who had lost babies.

The stories of friends and strangers, novels, and saints all had something in common; they showed me how to find goodness and hope amidst my grief and longing. I wanted to show others how to do the same through the story of my daughter’s life. 

For months, the story I wrote about my daughter remained mine alone. I never intended to publish it, but I did begin to share it with moms who grieved their own lost babies in hopes it might bring them some comfort. Women cried bittersweet tears, they told me, even those who had never lost a child. They wanted to share the story with others.

Eventually, I realized that I might have written a story that could heal, like the many stories that had been healing for me. My husband, Bastian, began fine-tuning the story, adding deeply poignant lines to the poem. We found an illustrator, Bernadette Gockowski, with a personal connection to loss. Jellybean: A Baby’s Journey to God sold over 1,500 copies in the first month that Holy Heroes released it. The need for this book was bigger than we thought!

There are many organizations in the Church that help women after baby loss. There are few that focus on men, and even fewer that focus on the siblings. Though parents have found comfort in Jellybean, it was written for these children. My husband and I have watched our own children grieve in very personal ways. 

My 3-year-old who persistently asked questions and talked to total strangers about her lost sister would have benefitted from a book like Jellybean. She would have listened to it over and over, and it would have answered all her questions. My son faced the loss with beautiful faith, always believing his sister was happy while in the womb and afterward. His joy is written all over the images in Jellybean. My oldest daughter struggled the most. She would have taken Jellybean into quiet corners of the house and cried over it. She would have hidden it as a memento under her pillow, to help her feel close to the baby sister she so longed for. It is for the siblings that Jellybean was brought to life.

Jellybean begins with images of life in the womb at its earliest stages, yet the story is always told through the perspective of the baby. She is comfortable and cared for and eventually delights in the sounds and sensations she experiences from outside the womb. She comes to know each member of her family, and she wants to come out and meet them. When a new voice speaks to her, one more lovely than all the rest, she is whisked away to heaven. There she is given a mission to help her family join her someday. 

This story touches on many of the topics my own children struggled with. Our stillborn daughter was one of four losses we have experienced, but she was so far along and so beautiful to behold that the grief was much stronger. Many of our conversations were woven into Jellybean, including those about personhood, the communion of saints, the role of the Blessed Mother, the charity which characterizes the Body of Christ, life after death, and the Catholic view of suffering. This book, I hope, makes these heavy topics easier for parents to explain and children to understand.

Like the stories that helped me heal, Jellybean is meant to uplift. The hope of Jellybean is shown in the strengthening of family bonds, the love of community, and the reunion of the family with their little one in heaven one day. Peace is offered in the depiction that our lost babies only knew comfort in their short lives on earth and now experience the indescribable joy of heaven. 

There is no dogmatic teaching on the afterlife of babies who die without baptism. The subject has been debated since the 4th century. The Church has emphasized the theological opinion called “limbo,” but it was never declared dogmatic. Belief in heaven for unbaptized babies has also never been anathematized, so it remains a valid opinion that Catholics can hold. More recent discussions in the church have emphasized the biblical and theological reasons to hope unbaptized babies are in heaven. A great summary can be found in the 2007 document released under Pope Benedict XVI called, “The Hope of Salvation for Infants who Die Without Baptism.” There is also a funeral rite for unbaptized babies now. 

For these reasons, my husband and I chose to write hope into Jellybean’s story and thus into the story of all lost babies. We hope that our hope, illustrated in Jellybean, can be a source of comfort and healing for parents and children who suffer so great a loss.

Author Bio: Theoni Bell

Theoni Bell is the author of The Woman in the Trees: a novel based on America’s first Marian apparition (TAN Books). She wrote Jellybean: A Baby’s Journey to God (Holy Heroes) with her husband, Bastian, after their daughter was stillborn. Theoni homeschools her three children and teaches writing and literature at their co-op. You can find her at www.theonibell.com and Visions of the Good Help on Etsy.