July 11, 2008
Losing Children
Read Ruth 1:3-5 and Genesis 37:34-35
It is said that when we lose our parents, we lose our past; when we lose our
spouse, we lose our present; but when we lose our children, we lose our future.
As someone who has lost parents, husband and only child, I can tell you there
is definitely some truth in this. However, I have not lost God, and neither did Naomi.
With her family dead, Naomi was not only dealing with mind-numbing grief, but she
was about to fall into an abyss of poverty that would likely end in hunger, homelessness
and lonely death. It is no wonder that she thought that God's hand had gone out
against her. But at least she would die in her own country.
We all expect to lose our parents someday; that is the natural order of things, and in
that sense we can all expect to lose our past. Since it is natural to lose one's parents,
we can accept this loss more easily than the other losses. The memories we have of
our parents and the legacies of love and wisdom from them help us to become
reconciled to the loss and move forward with gratitude.
We all understand that when we get married, there is a strong probability that one
spouse will outlive the other. If the marriage does end in death, the pain is terrible,
but we knew going into the marriage that this would always be a possibility, and we
have the consolation that we kept our promise to take care of each other "in sickness
and in health, until death do us part." And if the marriage was happy, we have a
wealth of memories to console us.
Losing a child, however, is not even remotely like any other loss. The degree of pain
is in an entirely different category. No one ever thinks when they hold their child in
their arms for the first time that they might actually live to bury this child - and with
him, all of their hopes and dreams for the future. There will be no phone calls or visits
from a grown child; there will be no grandchildren. There will be no connection to the
future and nothing to look forward to in this life. Those are some of the thoughts that
went through my mind when my son died.
Losing your child means experiencing the most searing loss possible because this is
the loss you never expected, and this is the loss that goes against nature, against every
human instinct that you have. The strongest instinct in human nature is not the desire
to survive: it is the desire to protect one's young, to continue the human race. Who
would not unhesitatingly give their life to save the life of their child? This is how we as
human beings are made. And yet, it happens. Not to many, thank God, but to some of us.
How do we go on? How do we live with this impossible pain that never goes away?
My answer is gratitude. On the night that my son died, my husband said, "You know,
it could have been worse. You might never have had him, and we would have missed
out on all these years together." I decided he was right. I adopted this as my attitude
toward the loss of my son, and later the loss of my husband.
The morning after my son died, I began the day with the prayer that I have repeated
every morning of my life since then, from the Book of Common Prayer, the burial rite
for an adult:
"O God of grace and glory, I remember before you this day my son Brian; and I
thank you for giving him to us, his family and friends, to know and to love as a
companion on our earthly pilgrimage. In your boundless compassion, console us
who mourn. Give us faith to see in death the gate of eternal life, so that in quiet
confidence we may continue our course on earth until, by your call, we are reunited
with those who have gone before. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
This is the secret for surviving devastating loss: be grateful to God for all that he has
given us. As for Naomi, she was returning to Bethlehem, to the home of her ancestors
and the place where she had lived with her husband and sons when she was young.
And to the place where she had gotten to know God. Through all of her losses,
Naomi never lost God.
Laurie McAfee
