The Feast of “Saint” Stephanie

August the 28th. If you are a liturgical Christian, you might recognize this as the Feast Day of St. Augustine, that esteemed Church father whose influence extends to this day. However, I remember someone else who shares this holy day. Stephanie Jane Smith. August 28th was the day that my first daughter’s soul left this earth 37 years ago. Three days later, we closed the lid of the coffin bearing flesh of my flesh and lowered it into the ground. I was 25. Memento mori.*

Stephanie lived just three and a half months, and in those months, she suffered intensely and taught me lessons for a lifetime.

She taught me that love is a never-ending spring. Her death opened my heart to love children not of my flesh. It seems the cliché is true that the more you love, the more love there is to give.

She taught me that no one is exempt from suffering and loss. It was a good lesson to learn early in life. It opened me up to empathy for others in their pain, no matter what the affliction. Our pediatrician pressed that upon me even before she died, urging me to pray for other parents with seriously ill children.

She taught me that there is a “club” no one wants to join. Parents who have lost children. Losing a child to death is a unique sorrow, a screaming injustice in the world. Parents should not outlive their children. It’s just not right.

She taught me that I am not in control. No matter how hard I try, how well I do things, how good my choices are, sometimes things don’t go my way. And that’s okay.

She taught me that grief can linger for decades, but it softens. The searing pain eventually melts into a familiar ache, always there but not debilitating. A defining mark upon the soul.

She taught me that a person can endure unimaginable grief, and that grief can refine and temper, reveal and remake, mature and mellow.

She taught me that sometimes love means letting go. Had she lived, her life would have been filled with pain and unending loss.

She taught me that there is a cruciform shape to the universe. Suffering, death, burial — all lead to resurrection, new life.

So on this day of remembrance, I think of death, memento mori, but I also think of life, a life that I have lived in the wake of hers. And I am grateful. Her sojourn on this earth was brief, but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

*I learned the concept of memento mori in, The Way Up Is Down, by Marlena Graves, published in 2020.