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7/24/24Our anniversary is tomorrow, yet of our nine years together has by far been the hardest.We have truly been blessed with healthy communication and a strong love for one another. Our love for Christ is the strength of our bond which helps us through the darkest of days we have ever experienced.As many of you know we have been on a journey to adopt children. But this journey is not for the faint of heart. But why should it be? Adoption is but a salve for brokenness that comes in one form or another and is meant as a grace to those that need it most. For the adoptive parent it’s a sacrifice of heart and mind giving oneself over to caring for a child, yet unlike a biological child, your heart must also open to another mother and for some another father. Each child will deal with this separation in their own way, but they will deal with it and you will likely take the brunt of the trauma that needs to be worked out. That doesn’t mean life doesn’t turn out well for everyone, but it also might be extremely difficult and it should cause pause for anyone considering giving a child a home in this way.There is however one pain only life can teach and only God can heal, a semi-permanent separation with no possible earthly reconciliation. But no matter how that member came into your family their death will forever be a lingering trauma. A wicked thief leaving nothing but grief, death bears its nasty grip on the most vulnerable. And while it is only experienced by the one no longer with us, those left in its aftermath are forever scarred. There is no wonder hell is described as a weeping and gnashing of teeth; no surprise Jesus’ brow dripped of blood when agonizing over his impending doom; Nothing but darkness is left to overwhelm those left behind the departed.As much as I wish I could delight in the joy of our anniversary, of the nine years we’ve remained faithfully committed to one another, there is a heaviness, a darkness, a deafening silence that has been piercing our hearts for the last few months. We are blessed to be able to cling to one another for comfort, but we spend many hours lost with a desperate feeling of loneliness.Tears spilled for broken dreams. Guttural yells and silent murmurs hurled to the heavens. The frantic nightmares awakening us at all hours of the day and night, the feeling of forgetting the one you were entrusted to care for only to face the grim reality that they are nowhere.Perhaps if you have read this far you have become worried, saddened or overwhelmed. Some of you know the story and others are confused. But how does one come right out and talk about that which had already been obfuscated.With a still heavy heart one jaunt in our journey has become too dark to navigate alone, and too important to not share with those of you we consider friends.On April 24, 2024 we received news from our social worker that our sweet baby boy had been stillborn.We had been chosen by his mother to take care of him just a few weeks prior. Our hearts were filled with compassion for this mother and this child. Our life was changing rapidly. He was a week away from giving us the gift of grief every child brings to their parents, a much preferred grief over the gift death bestowed upon us. Yet he was also a week away from giving us the greatest joy parents can experience. And while he was neither family by blood, nor legally a Scichowski, his precious biological mother had given him to us fully in her heart and honored us by giving him the name Julie and I had chosen.

Luke Ellis

The weeping and gnashing of teeth we expected from our baby boy is now wrought by the two chosen to feed and soothe him. The coos of joy and new life are now met with deafening absence. The nights are as sleepless as we were expecting them to be, but for all the wrong reasons.Death is a thief. An unprincipled, unforgiving grifter. Taking whatever it wishes for whatever evil reason it chooses. There is no rationality to make sense of it. There is but a cold acceptance of this absurdity in life.That is until the day all things are made new. If we believe Christ has defeated death and the Father is a righteous judge we have every reason to trust that Luke is at the feet of Jesus. “Let the children come to me.” Until the day death lays waste to our flesh and bones, until it again attempts to take from us that which does not belong to it, we will continue to remember our sweet boy Luke, and his precious mother, each and every day they are forever emblazoned in our hearts.Thank you for reading. Please take heart in knowing that our families and those that walk alongside us during these moments have cared greatly for us. If this is the first you are hearing about this please know your condolences are counted to you. Please continue to pray that God gives peace and understanding to Luke’s mother. We know she is a believer, but we also know she has a completely unique grief to process.We wished to have shared with you a different story. We had so hoped you all could share in the joy of seeing this young one come into our lives, but alas, we all wait for Heaven.To be sure, we have not abandoned this journey. We still wait with open arms.And to my Bride. May we share a hundred more anniversaries just as precious as the last. I love you now and always, and I am not going anywhere without you.

The raging silence, has no one an ear
To hear that which has become now a nightmare
A faint coo, a distant hungry shrill
What ghostly apparitions do mill
When undistracted by the world
Only then does the truth unfurl
An outstretched heart, imperceptible reach
What sanity remains, Grief will teach
Teach and train, no relief in sight
Grief has taken all which was held tight
A tinctured salve, with little remedy
No grant of cure until Eternity
The love for another lost in the shadow
But Death’s grip, remains, ever shallow
For to Death a promise will be kept
When all the world’s tears have finally wept
A reunion of sorts and reconciliation sure
After all that we have had to endure
No longer raucous, nor silent blistering fear
When at final trumpet blast Christ will appear
But for now it haunts, that which was stolen
A treasure for caring, a gift for us chosen
All sleep still faint, all rest made scant
Until His return may His peace us grant

- Michael Scichowski, II

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