Good Morning Everyone;
Tomorrow will be the 9th anniversary of my mothers death. But I write today, not of death, but of death AND life; and the paradox between the two battles.
As many of you know by now, Baby Mariah is fighting a Pontine Glioma.
Please >CLICK HERE< for her Caring Bridge site.
Pontine Glioma is an INoperable brain stem cancer.
Her parents, her grandparents, her extended families, her doctors, and all whose lives she has touched in her 3 years of life, are helping her to fight this heinous cancer.
Yet, through it all, somehow, there is Faith. An inherent, and God~given sense of Faith, a sense of Hope.
Through Baby Mariah we learn that same Faith and that same Hope.
Lord grant that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled as to console,
To be understood; as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.
There is hope too, for the family of Theresa's friend, a dear friend of mine. Her friend, JoAnn, was in a terrible car accident, (struck by a drunk driver who had run a red light), and is slowly, but surely, fighting to recover.
She remains in a coma...
Please >CLICK HERE< for her site.
But my question today is What happens when somehow we 'lose' our Faith? Whether it is for a moment, or for a lifetime?
Jens blog from yesterday addresses suicide. A young cousin of her own friend had commited suicide this past Saturday. Since I cannot say this more eloquently than she already has, please >CLICK HERE< for Jens blog.
Jen has met this topic head~on and has addressed what hindsight truly is. Her own grieving just below the surface of each word.
Oh "suicide"...
~That taboo topic of what epitomizes hopelessness in our own souls.
~The empty arms and hearts of the souls we leave behind, and all the recriminations there of.
I know more than a few of you here whose lives this awful "suicide" has already touched, and welcome your own comments below...
Yet oddly, in life and in contemplating death, there comes a familiar place where we have all been at one point or another. That being the question of life after death.
I think we are all grown up enough, and harbor enough faith of our own, to know that life does not end because our heart stops beating. But in those moments, as we attend funerals and wakes, and offer up our own sympathies; it is only because we have 'lost' someone that we have also loved.
We can commiserate "loss".
And yet, it is at that same point that we are afraid to offer up our own faith too.
My father passed away almost half a lifetime ago already. I was 26 when he died suddenly, after visiting many of his friends just the day before. As I drove into town the following morning, there came a sense of loss so overwhelming... And I can still remember EXACTLY where I was on that road, as I questioned "Life after death"... And all the "what~ifs" that flooded my soul. And yet, it was just a moment of my time, less than a mile of my driving. But I can tell you this...
... As dark as that moment was, even as brief, there have been no other instances in my life that I have ever questioned it.
To say it was the most soul~less moment of my life is most accurate.
After that moment came a lifetime of 'knowing'...
As I somehow 'knew' just 4 years earlier while Roberta lay in the neonatal intensive care unit; being seven and a half weeks premature. Fighting for her own life.
I 'knew' during those weeks what HOPE truly is.
And I knew then through the offerings of prayers, what those same prayers were capable of.
Jens page brings to mind the poem I had first read while I too was recovering from Roberta's birth. That was 1980, to say I almost bled to death is an undertsatement, as I recall the doctor hollering into the hallway, "Where the hell is the anesthesiologist, I've got a woman in here that is going to die." But there was no fear, even weak as I was, neither then, nor in those days after.
"For you to love the while he lives and mourn for when he's dead.
It may be six or seven years, or twenty-two or three,
But will you, till I call him back, take care of him for me?
He'll bring his charms to gladden you, and should his stay be brief,
You'll have his lovely memories as solace for your grief."
But there are lessons taught down there I want this child to learn.
I've looked the wide world over in My search for teachers true
And from the throngs that crowd life's lanes I have chosen you.
Now will you give him all your love, not think the labor vain,
Nor hate Me when I come to call to take him back again?"
For all the joy Thy child shall bring, the risk of grief we run.
We'll shelter him with tenderness, we'll love him while we may,
And for the happiness we've known, forever grateful stay;
But should the angels call for him much sooner than we've planned,
We'll brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand!"
I cried then, sobbed, that wretched soul wrenching cry... Roberta being less than 24 hours old... Yet those words also gave me hope to go on.
Baby Mariahs parents know what they are up against.
Their Faith has held steadfast throughout her illness.
They know the joys of parenthood a lot better than those of us who seemingly take it for granted, or simply do not care.
They have more Hope than our own hearts have ever dreamed of, and they have known more love because of it.
JoAnns family is continually praying; hoping that she will recover.
Christophers family and friends' faith will be tested over and over again in the coming days, weeks, months and years. And what can we offer his family, but our hope that all will know life after death?
Sadly, even that sounds shallow.
XOXO
Anne
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