In which I reflect on the icon of Shadow Lake

When I think about Shadow Lake, and why it means so much to me, many things come to mind. Shadow Lake has been wrapped up into some of the most meaningful times of my life. Engaged, married, facing infertility, praying for a baby, and then thanking God for that baby, and then burying another. I have spent many hours walking this lake with the hopes and hurts of life. And I only came to know this lake five years ago, when I was dating my (now) husband.

We used to go for runs around the lake. I was definitely more fit then. I worked downtown and biked from my midtown home, both to and from work, until the pandemic hit and everything became work from home. Then, I worked from his home in the days leading up to our wedding.

Exercise was one thing my husband and I could enjoy together. We would run around the lake (about a mile) and then hit the gym. He’d lift weights and I would do my HIIT exercises. This continued into our first year of marriage. We struggled with infertility, and our relationship took a hard hit from that.

As our second year of marriage began, I began learning about cortisol and how we can overstress our bodies. We were in the second year of the pandemic, I was working from home doing customer service, and we still did those exercises together. I realized what could be standing in our way, my high stress levels. I switched to decaffeinated coffee, dropped my HIIT exercises, and mostly just ran or walked. I tried losing weight too.

The only change I saw was that my acne began to clear. I spent many hours walking beside Shadow Lake, begging God for a child. Listening to “Control Line” by Sarah Sparks on repeat. Crying a lot. A friend of mine was also longing for something, and we decided to take all of November to pray each day for each other and ourselves. Nothing changed at that time. And for me friend, three years later, she’s still waiting for her something.

But I had changed. I accepted my fate. I had gotten some discouraging lab results back at the end of October, and after seeing nothing change in November, I just accepted facts as facts. Then we got into a wreck Thanksgiving night, and that weekend, conceived our son, Little Lion. It still amazes me how everything happened. I spent much of my pregnancy afraid of losing him, but this was in direct contrast to something I felt God told me at the beginning, that everything would be alright. And it was, with him.

Since the end of 2023, I’ve been pregnant and lost three babies. Each one a little further along than the previous. My most recent was right at twelve weeks, and has been especially devastating. I had dreamt of a homebirth at Shadow Lake, looking at the lake I love, and I had believed this baby would make it and I would have that homebirth in May. It was going to be the redemptive birth that I had been wishing for since having Little Lion in the hospital, instead of at home where I wanted to be and felt safest.

Instead, I delivered my sweet, tiny baby at home after trying to stop what we thought was a threatened miscarriage. Now that baby rests by the lake. I planted flowers around his grave, so in the spring, when we should have had our baby, we’ll have flowers instead. One last beautiful thing that I could do for my sweet baby.

Throughout all of these seasons of my life, the anticipation of marriage, early married days, pregnancy, motherhood, loss… Shadow Lake has been a constant. I just have to look out the window, and there she is. My friend. Beautiful in all seasons, and somehow also a comfort. Even when our time living here is over, and we leave, I will always be connected to Shadow Lake. Not only because of my precious lost baby, buried at her shore, but because of the permanent impression this place has made on my mind and in my heart.

Shadow Lake has become an icon of my life-after-being-single- an icon of the last five years of my life, which somehow shine brighter than all the previous 25 I had lived. This time and this place has left an indelible mark on me.