Author’s Note: I would like to reprise the first article I ever wrote for Meridian Magazine six years ago. It was a heartwarming little miracle that happened for us just before Christmas that year and definitely felt like a tender mercy for our family. Just a short story and a song-maybe that’s all you will have time for during this busy season. I hope you will enjoy it.

Introduction

I finally got the Christmas decorations up this morning and the Christmas music is going. Its snowing outside and I am overwhelmed by a feeling of melancholy which has mostly to do with memories of a bitter sweet Christmas almost forty years ago when our fifth child, Richie, was born on this day (December 8), lived to the next day, and then passed away from the effects of Rh-factor. The year was 1968.

When Richie died, I put every memento I had of him in a tiny padded scrapbook: his birth certificate, death certificate, footprints, bills from the doctor and hospital, sympathy cards from friends, precious letters from my mother and dad, and two tiny Polaroid photos of him in his casket. The hospital’s camera had malfunctioned so these were our only pictures of him.

Doug was in graduate school at Indiana University and we were extremely poor and were unable to afford the trip to Utah for his burial. We held him for a long time after his passing and memorized his face, and said our goodbyes, and then we had his little body shipped to Salt Lake City, where my parents met the plane and conducted a sweet graveside service for him with friends and relatives present. They took two Polaroid pictures of him in his light blue suit in the tiny casket.

Two years later we moved our family back to Utah. The little scrapbook meant everything to me. It was all I had. I would take it out every Christmas and remember Richie and pray for him, and even talk or sing to him. One Christmas season, many years later, I looked for the scrapbook but could not find it anywhere. I searched over and over again with no success. I could not find it the next year or the next and I felt heartsick over this. I prayed fervently that I would be able to find it.

The Miracle

One day I received an unusual call from a young man who was obviously handicapped, saying, “Hi, I’m Mark and I work at Deseret Industries. Did your baby die?” I was shocked but answered that yes, our baby had died many years ago. Mark said, “Well, I have something here that I think you will want to get back. It is a little scrapbook about a baby named Richard Scott

Perry who died and I don’t think you meant to give it away.”

I asked Mark how he had found my phone number since I hadn’t written my name in the book, and he said, “I saw a little clipping from a newspaper in Indiana and it said that the baby’s parents were Douglas and Janice Perry, so I looked in the telephone book to see if you happened to live in Provo now, and there was your number. Do you want this scrapbook?”

With my heart pounding, I asked him please to not let the scrapbook out of his hands until I got there. Doug and I drove right to Deseret Industries and asked the manager if he knew where Mark was. He pointed to the back of the store and said, “He’s waiting for you; he won’t let go of that scrapbook until you come and get it.”

We hurried back to where Mark was waiting and he presented the book to me with a flourish and a big grin on his face. I hugged him tight, kissed him on the cheek, gave him some of our Christmas CDs and thanked him over and over. I think most workers might have discarded the scrapbook as being of no value to anyone else. I was overjoyed to have it back in my hands!

On our way home from the store, Doug said, “Do you know what day it is?” and I realized it was December 8, Richie’s birthday. It seemed more than coincidence to us and we thanked Heavenly Father over and over for that sweet little Christmas miracle in our lives.

Epilogue

[Later we realized that when we had moved across town in Provo a few years earlier, we had put some boxes in our storage unit temporarily. Later, we had sorted through the boxes and thrown away what we could, and had sent the rest of the things to Deseret Industries. The scrapbook was inadvertently sent with those things.]

A Song for Richie

Years after Richie’s passing I felt a strong desire to write about our experience. I could remember the day with absolute clarity and felt that setting my feelings to music would memorialize him for me and for our family. I hadn’t cried many tears at the time of his death because I was trying to reassure our four other children that all was well. However, during the two weeks when I was writing the song the tears flowed freely and eventually I felt a perfect peace about him. When it came time to record it, I asked our daughter Lynne to sing it. It was particularly poignant for her as the birth of her own child was imminent, but I have always been grateful that she was willing to do this for us.

Click here to listen to “My Heart Sang a Lullaby”

My Heart Sang a Lullaby

(Words & Music by Janice Kapp Perry)
(Solo: Lynne Perry Christofferson)

Richie was born on a day in December
I know it was Sunday-some things you remember
Richie’s first cries were like music to me
But no one could promise how long he would stay
And the night seemed so long as we watched him and prayed

     Chorus:
     And my heart sang a lullaby to celebrate birth
     As he crossed the veil between heaven and earth
     My heart sang a lullaby for this tiny one
     A song of forever, of things yet to come
     Just a lullaby to carry him home

Richie was gone by the light of the morning
Before his first sunrise, before the day’s dawning
So still in our arms, it was our turn to cry
A memorized moment as we said goodbye
And he looked like an angel in his blanket of white

     chorus

Richie, my son, only here for a moment
He came, and he went, and the world didn’t notice
But nothing’s the same, especially for me
Eternity’s promise is clearer to see
He has just gone ahead to where I’ll someday be

     chorus

Just a lullaby to carry him home


Janice Kapp Perry: composer, author, lecturer

 

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