On the way home from the hospital with my friend, his sister, and the baby's dad we stopped at a department store to buy a little white dress for the baby's viewing and burial. We didn't talk much on the half-hour drive home. There seemed to be little to say. The greatest "what ifs" in all of life.
Today I was thinking about how this contrast of joy and sadness is a daily occurrence in many parts of the world where pregnant women never know if they will deliver a healthy baby or struggle through a pregnancy only to mourn the loss of a child.