Nicholas Wolterstorff felt like he couldn't cry. That crying was for women. Maybe that is why I feel like I am expected to cry. Sometimes the tears don't come. Sometimes they come at unexpected times. Sometimes you have to put it on hold because someone needs you.
Grief is a strange thing. You carry it with you all the time. Not that you are never happy, just that a heaviness has settled. People may ask, "How are you?" and if I say "good" suspect me of not answering honestly or being open and real (as some like to say). But that is not it. Besides the fact that I am still redeemed and because of Jesus I really am good; it's just that this state of pain is my new normal. The heaviness does not lift. As Wolterstorff says, "Sorrow is no longer the island, but the sea." In the midst of happiness, there is still a pulling inside.
"What consolation can there be other than having him back?" -- N.W. It is not consolation to think that his life has affected someone else in a positive way. A good thing that comes from a bad thing does not make the bad thing good. God makes beauty from ashes. But does God make the ashes beautiful or does beauty grow from the ashes?
Life goes on. It has to really, there is no other way. Sometimes I wish it would stop. I remember after our baby died we went to get some food, and I was struck by how normal a day it was for everyone. The twist of that is, their day could also have been shattering and I never knew.
It's hard to believe someone has really died. Even if you see and touch the one that has died. It's hard to know the tricks my sister's mind must play on her because she didn't even see our brother laying in the hospital -- just his ashes. The phone rang on Sunday and I thought it was my brother calling again. It was about a month after Ian died that fresh pain set in again. I realized that this wasn't a joke, that death is final, that we really weren't going to have a baby. There is nothing that can be done. You are completely helpless, and that is one thing that makes death so horrible. It is final. I know because of Jesus we will see those who believe again, but it is the now that hurts. The now that you will never hold them or talk to them or play with them. It is the now that is so hard and so long.
It hurts to have dreams die. All the dreams we had for our child -- gone. The dream of seeing his first step, of hearing his little giggle, of seeing him ride a bike, of learning to read, of graduating, of getting married perhaps, of helping others and being a wise man. Living children can destroy our dreams for them too, but there is always hope that they will turn and do what is right. Life is just so hard.
Then there are the dreams we have while we sleep. Strange. Twisting facts and people. Sometimes the one we love is whole again, sometimes the dream is frighteningly real. For about the first month, between my husband and I, we dreamed every night of our son.
I want to tell people that I have five boys. But I can't. I feel robbed somehow, gipped. One day I was in a grocery store and a lady was commenting on all my boys. She said, "We had all boys too, oh, but we had five." So did I. So did I. My heart yearns to be heard. But I don't have five. Someone stole one of them. The hard thing is that the Someone is God. I do not understand. As Wolterstorff states, "It is not your absence in which I dwell, but Your elusive troubling presence." Did God cause death? God came to destroy death. The last enemy to be destroy is death. But isn't God love? Isn't God all-powerful? Perhaps you cannot say, "God caused his death", but how can you not say "God could have stopped his death." And then I wonder what is the difference? If He allowed it to happen, He could have stopped it. I cannot reconcile this in my mind. I have heard others present their reasoning and theology. Sometimes I can see what they are saying, but still I do not understand God. The questions come up again. But underneath or through it all I believe that God is still good and still cares for me. At times I feel like a dog that keeps running to its owner who kicks him away, but undaunted keeps running back, only to be kick again, but he runs back. Crazy? Yes, I am. I have felt like a fool to believe, but a fool to give up believing.
And yet, faith continues. Faith is refined. Faith grows through lament. But would I choose faith, if given a choice? Or would I choose to have the one I love back? I have to believe that God's mercy doesn't give me a choice because I think I would choose a life of ease and miss the True Treasure.
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