Lisa Hauser (front center) with her band Rock River Revival

“Mommy, do you rock Betsie in your heart?” Those eight words changed my life.

A month after the death of my youngest daughter, I had heard enough platitudes to make me desperate to avoid adult human contact: “It was God’s will.” “You’re young, Lisa, you can have another baby.” “Be thankful for the two children you already have,” “Time heals,” “God must have given you a special child because you are a special person.” “Put it behind you and get on with your life.”

My southern-born Christian parents instilled in me a certain level of politeness that didn’t allow me to lash out at the well-meaning friends and family members who, in their desperation to find something to say, said, for me, all the wrong things. I just got angry and stayed that way. Oh, I smiled and thanked them for their concern. I mumbled a few words in response, but silently I railed at God for sending loving, but inarticulate, people to comfort me.

I was angry: angry at God for allowing Betsie to die; angry at my husband whose grief was different than mine; angry at myself for carrying the gene that decimated the baby’s heart, angry at friends who didn’t know what to say to me.

In the daylight hours my arms physically ached to hold her. My throat felt closed and tight from unspeakable grief. I punished myself for passing on a congenital heart defect that killed my child. A singer from the age of two, I refused myself the right to sing.

I fell into a fantasy world of denial. I went to work every day, picked up Tracie, our three-year-old, and Ricky, our nineteen-month-old, from the sitter on the way home, and made supper, gave baths, and tucked them into bed. Then I retreated into my fantasy.

I slept with the tiny preemie sleeper Betsie had worn on the last day of her life so that I could still breathe the baby scent of her. I refused to let my husband, Richard, remove the cradle from my bedroom. That would have burst my bubble-belied my pretend world where Betsie still lived and breathed. I dreamed of holding her in my arms-of hearing her cry and rushing to gather her up.

I remember the day when my shattered heart began to heal. Richard had escaped the black pit that had become our home by going to his brother’s house for the day. Ricky was down for his nap, and Tracie was coloring on the living room floor. I collapsed into the rocking chair in a corner of the room, closed my eyes, and slipped into “my world.” I slowly rocked back and forth and dreamed.

“Mommy, do you rock Betsie in your heart?”

There stood my oldest child, her crayons laid aside. She leaned against me, and asked again, “Mommy, do you rock Betsie in your heart?”

“Yes, Tracie, sometimes,” I stammered.

She nodded wisely, and went back to her play as though I was perfectly rational.

Another time, Trae asked, “Mommy, is Betsie hungry in heaven?” I somehow found the words to explain that the Bible tells us that God has prepared a table for us-a banquet-and that Betsie would never be hungry there.

A few days later, Trae came to me again. “Does Betsie sleep in God’s bed?”

“I... I don’t know, but I think she might,” I answered. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

I gathered her in a hug and felt her little arms wrap around my neck. She was real and living and breathing. She spoke words that didn’t come through the world’s filter of politeness or religiosity. She simply spoke from her heart.

Slowly, over a matter of months, I began to live again in the here and now. I started to sing again.

As time went past I faced other difficult losses. In particular, my grandmother’s death left a huge hole in my life. From all over the country we gathered at her bedside at the small Greenville, Kentucky hospital where, following a stroke, she lay dying. On a chill January night, we sang to her the hymns she’d loved. Unable to speak, she mouthed the words with us. She died a few days later, quietly, as she had lived. She was one of the few people I knew that had buried a child-in fact she’d lost two children. She had been wise and wonderful during the bleak days after Betsie’s death. I missed her very much.

Several years later, I started writing music and found that I had a gift for it. One day a haunting tune began playing in my head. I recorded it quickly before I could forget the complicated series of notes that were pouring out. Then the words started flowing.

Press the play button to listen to the song

There’s a tiny babe in a tiny grave tucked away in a quiet place.
And a mother’s heart nearly broke apart when they laid her child away.
It was long ago, ten years or so, but the pain was still inside.
If you listen near, you can almost hear what the grieving mother cried.

Sleep, baby, sleep.
Won’t you rest your tired head.
Arms are wrapped around you.
You will soon be fed.
You are wrapped within the Father’s love.
He will hold you now instead.
So sleep, baby, sleep.
Tucked away in God’s own bed.

The years went by and the mother’d cry when she felt the baby’s loss.
Then she’d see a ray of the sun one day and she’d know the peace of the cross.
It was God’s own babe in the grave had laid. His own son the price had paid.
So she’d whisper low, and the tears would flow, as trembling she prayed.

Sleep, baby, sleep.
Won’t you rest your tired head.
Arms are wrapped around you.
You will soon be fed.
You are wrapped within the Father’s love.
He will hold you now instead.
So sleep, baby, sleep.
Tucked away in God’s own bed.

One day at dawn before the dark had gone a mother slipped away.
And at her side her children cried as night turned into day.
But rememb’ring how her head would bow, and what faithfully she’d say,
One by one they joined, and with voices mourned.
Lovingly they prayed.

Sleep, Mother, sleep.
Won’t you rest your tired head.
Arms are wrapped around you.
You will soon be fed.
You are wrapped within the Father’s love.
He will hold you now instead.
So sleep, Mother, sleep.
Tucked away in God’s own bed.

In the ensuing years, as I’ve spoken to thousands of people about grief, this song has brought comfort to many. All because my three-year-old spoke from her heart and my heart heard her message. -Lisa Kay Hauser

© 2004 Philip Dale Smith