Nate often told the story of a client who asked him, “Do you have a family?”

“Seven kids,” he said.

The man’s eyes grew wide. “And how many wives?”

This line cued Nate’s hearty laugh. He was proud of his brood, evidenced by the abundance of photos filling his office, including the gallery taped to his door. But every family goes through periods of stress and strain, even the families where love abounds.

It was during one of those difficult periods that I learned, by way of a home pregnancy test, we’d be having another baby. Nate’s thriving real estate investment firm had completely unraveled due to a governmental rule change, and we were at the lowest point of our marriage, our family life and our bank account.

I hesitated to tell Nate our numbers would be expanding during a time when everything else was contracting, so I kept the secret until I was two months along. But I knew “my” news needed to become “our” news, despite life’s pressure. So we were just climbing into bed one night after closing the nursery door on our 11 month old baby when I told him. Wondering what his unfiltered response would be, I hoped it wouldn’t encircle our blessed event with a negative mindset.

“Hey, Dear. What would you say … uh … if I told you … uh we were going to have another baby?”

I had to hand it to Nate. He filtered his response with lightning speed. Before even changing expression he said, “Let’s pray.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Relief washed over me while concern probably flooded him, but he didn’t let on. He prayed a short prayer over the little one and me, no doubt borrowing time to get his thoughts organized, and then said, “I think I’m going to take a bath and read a little.” Never mind that he’d just taken one. The bathtub was his think tank, and it was the right place to go.

When I was nearing my second trimester, the bleeding started, and after six routine pregnancies, I knew something was amiss. Nate was an hour away in his Loop office but urged me to “Call the doctor!”

After folding a thick bath towel over the driver’s seat, I drove myself to the doctor’s office. By the time I arrived, blood was everywhere. The receptionist saw my emergency and hurried me into a room, shaking her head with a frown, which confirmed what I already knew.

The miscarriage occurred right in the office, and the doctor “caught” our baby in a pan. I wept as a nurse patted my hand, doing her best to console me. Because we’d already announced the news to family and friends, we had to announce the miscarriage, too.

The day after our loss, I remember kneeling over the edge of the bathtub washing my hair. Water rushed over my head as I tried to use Nate’s think tank to think. “Lord,” I wailed, “Who was that person? I want to know!”

Nate was buried by problems and losses all his own and could have reacted to the miscarriage like someone who’d ducked a burden, but his response was one of genuine compassion.

As the due date for the miscarried baby drew closer, I steeled myself for an emotional day. It was poignant indeed, because on that very afternoon, I learned I was pregnant with another baby.

This time I couldn’t wait to tell Nate. Because of the miscarriage, both of us responded with joy, and Birgitta Mary soon joined our family, an easy baby who delighted us all. God works in ways we can’t usually understand, but once in a while he reveals one of his secrets. He has shared two of them with me, and I treasure them both:

First, if we hadn’t miscarried our baby back then, we wouldn’t have our precious Birgitta today.

Second, Nate now knows who Baby Eight is, and since November 3rd has been enjoying a genuine relationship with him or her. What an incredible meeting that must have been!

“Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave —what can you know?” (Job 11:7-8)

This morning as I woke up, it seemed inviting to stay under the covers a little longer. The window-weather check revealed the same crop of icicles I’ve seen for a week, each dagger looking like it could zip down and pierce me right through. My pillow seemed an edgy place to rest!

As I lay still, my thoughts drifted to our children. When I write prayers over them, I refer to them as “our 7+2,” using a plus sign for our son-in-law and daughter-in-law, since they’ve added so much to our family. All nine of these people have made themselves unselfishly available since the minute we heard the word “cancer”. At that time they rearranged their already-full lives to be physically present with us, with me.

While ruminating under the covers, I thought back over the past few days. Each of our 7+2 has either been with me at the cottage or checked in from their distant homes. They’re still making themselves available, with enthusiasm. I believe Nate does have some awareness of earth-activity, a truth supported by Scripture, and if he knows how his 7+2 are performing, he is pleased.

Nate and I never set out to have seven children. Although I fantasized as a little girl about eight babies, choosing their sexes and naming them during my play times, Nate had no expectations in this department. Then he married me. During our engagement, we talked about a family and whether or not we wanted one, while having a great deal of fun just by ourselves. We tabled the matter for later.

When we learned I was pregnant with Nelson after three years of marriage, we were both smitten with the idea of a child. Nate had never been around babies and knew nothing of sleepless nights or messy diapers. But he learned fast and willingly got his hands dirty in the nitty-gritty of parenting. In the beginning he would ask, “How much ointment on his diaper rash? A teaspoon or a tablespoon?”

As more children came along, he became a pro at helping, and we struck one of many parenting deals. If I would clean up all the bloody noses and skinned knees (because he was squeamish on those), then he’d clean up all the vomiting episodes (because I was squeamish on those). We would share the poop. During our twenty-five years of parenting young children, that arrangement worked perfectly.

Nate grew up in a family of two boys, and “just two” seemed right to him, since it was his experience. It would have been fine for us, too, except that after two boys, we both longed for a girl. After one daughter, we hoped for another. There was always a reason why “one more” would be a great idea. As each came along, Nate enfolded him or her into his life, with the exception of one pregnancy announcement. (See tomorrow’s blog.)

As our kids grew older and left home for college and points beyond, Nate was fascinated with their choices, becoming interested in each of their pursuits. He never insisted they go to his universities or investigate his career as their own. Instead he studied each one, learned their strengths and encouraged them in those directions.

Although fathering didn’t come naturally to Nate, he did a good job, evidenced by the fact that his children all rushed to be with him when the chips were down. He related well to these 7+2 young adults and found deep pleasure in being with each one of them.

This morning as I turned the covers back to get out of bed, I had to acknowledge that God had showered me with blessings even before my feet touched the floor, reminding me of the many gifts he’s poured into my life over the years. No matter what this day or any other would bring, I knew I already had more than enough reasons to be grateful.

“Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Today I read 50 blog posts written by another family about their dad’s four month fight with cancer. He died last August at 63, a year younger than Nate. Although I never met this man, his daughter is married to my cousin’s son, so we do have a link.

As I read through John’s story, I felt an immediate bond with this total stranger because his battle had so much in common with ours. What appeared in every one of his posts was a report on his daily confrontation with leg swelling and pain. Multiple blood clots could not be removed because of surgical risk, and nothing alleviated this acute pain.

When I finished reading his story, my leg hurt, too. The day-in-day-out pounding of pain in the very same bodily spot over weeks of time produces an exhaustion and discouragement difficult to overcome. One of my daughter’s friends battles constant head pain, and after two years of never being without it, she said she wished someone would just cut off her head. She was only half joking.

My thoughts wandered back to Nate’s ordeal with pain. Until the last week of his life, his greatest misery was always in his lower back. This was a group of non-life-threatening bone problems that tormented him with piercing pain that absolutely never let up, not for one minute. When a man with ferocious fast-growing tumors throughout his body voices his main complaint as back pain, it’s got to be excruciating.

As I thought about John and Nate with nearly unbearable pain pounding them every minute of every day, I felt awful. Did I sympathize enough with Nate? Did I have his pain on my mind continually? Did I remember to care for that pain with fresh ice packs as soon as the ones he was using got warm? Were there other ways I could have helped him? Was I impatient in my serving? Did he sense it?

As we grew closer to Nate’s death, my willingness to work hard for him increased. I became eager to please him in even tiny ways, and it was satisfying to do so. The question is, why wasn’t this true from the very beginning?

Tonight I’m realizing I could have done a much better job helping Nate, not just during his six weeks of cancer but during the 35 weeks of agonizing back pain before that. I could have done much more to show him love, and from this vantage point tonight, I feel badly. Why was it I could sympathize and serve tirelessly when I knew his time was short, but couldn’t summon up that kind of unfettered help when he had non-life-threatening pain?

We ought to be able to love our loved ones sacrificially at any time, not just when we know death is near. And it should be especially easy to help when we know the pain never goes away for the one who’s most important to us. I look back on 40 years of marriage and see plenty of self-centeredness on my part. It makes me feel even worse to realize Nate didn’t complain very often about his pain. Did I take advantage of this maturity by acting like a self-centered baby?

The trick in marriage is to figure this out from the get-go, not when time is waning. When I knew Nate’s life would soon end, I could cheerfully skip meals, live on four hours of sleep a night, forfeit showers. What would it have taken for me to eagerly surrender those same rights and many others not just when Nate was terminally ill or even when he had insufferable back pain, but also during our healthy years?

Jesus Christ was our perfect example of sacrificially loving others to-the-max. Because of my experience with Nate’s suffering and my often deficient serving, I’m increasingly impressed by Jesus and how he lived, how he loved. I have a better understanding of how hard it was for him not to self-pity or feel like he should have been served by others because of what he was about to do for them on the cross. Yet he never made that demand or any other.

Oh, how short I fall.

“All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5)