As Mitch began to drift away, I would look at him with deep sorrow in my heart. I desperately wanted to scoop him up in my arms and take him to someplace safe. A place like the children’s books we often read to him – a place of hope and happiness, joy and dreams. My little boy once glowing bright with laughter and childhood had become a dim candle about to flicker out. The light in his countenance had been growing dimmer by the day, and I was greatly pained therewith. When I took this photo I had the distinct impression we were no longer counting the days, but the hours.
I remember cuddling next to my son just after I took this photo. I held him gently but firmly and said, “I am so sorry this is happening, son. You are so brave. I think sometimes God sends us the little ones like you to teach us grown-ups what it means to be truly grown up. And Mitch, when I grow up, I want to be just like you.” Mitch squeezed my hand and smiled softly. I kissed his cheek and held him close to my chest as he drifted away, soft as a feather, into an afternoon nap.
While Mitch slept, I wept.
I wept so hard the bed was shaking, and I worried I would wake him. The grief I knew then was but a foretaste of the grief to come. It turns out death was the easy part … for I'd soon experience a kind of bewilderment, emptiness and longing that would become a more painful hell.
I learned long ago it isn't productive to raise my fist to the heavens and wonder why we suffer. Instead, I learned to turn my ear heavenward; to listen for secrets to the soul and learn what I was meant to learn. Too often people get hung up on asking the wrong questions – and therefore get no answers. They ask “why would God do this?” When we hurt, it can be tempting to shake our fists at the Universe and bemoan our circumstance as though we’re being singled out or treated unfairly. But the last time I checked, life isn't fair, and it rains on the just and unjust. Why should we be the only exception? The other day I learned over 150,000 people die each day. Countless others will suffer all manner of afflictions. In the few minutes it might take to shake our fist and complain about our own lives, hundreds of people will have passed from this life to the next, and a great many more will mourn their absence. The world is filled with grief and suffering. Some sorrows we bring upon ourselves. Other suffering just happens, whether from an act of God or simply life in motion.
At least for me, I've come to discover suffering and sorrow are an important part of life’s learnings. Any more I worry less about the origins of my sorrows – for what difference would it make? Surely God isn’t caught off guard or surprised by the events in our lives. Whether He’s the author of some of our sorrows, as a divine teacher, or simply a patient tutor as we struggle with life in motion … He could change the course of our sorrows if He wanted to. The fact He often doesn't sends a compelling message. The question I ask myself is, “Am I listening?”
“On this sacred weekend, I reflect on life’s crucibles and am grateful; not grateful that we suffer, but because we can be made better because of it.”
So, as I laid next to my dying son, weeping in the deepest of grief, I felt a pain beyond description that left my soul weary, bruised and weak. I didn't want my little boy to go, for he was my tender son and I loved him so. Though I prayed mightily for his safe return, the answer I received was “No, my son, for there are things you must learn.”
Thus began my journey with grief, down a bewildering path in search of relief. And though I still hear the deafening sound of death’s terrible toll, I have come to understand our mortal bodies are but clothing to the soul.
On this sacred weekend, I reflect on life’s crucibles and am grateful; not grateful that we suffer, but because we can be made better because of it.
