Today I cried.
I shed tears for my dear friends.
These friends gave birth to a baby this week after a complicated pregnancy. In order to respect their privacy, I won’t share many details. Even without knowing exactly what happened, how it happened, or why it happened, it is still possible to be impacted by the life of this little baby. This is not the first time I have walked alongside friends as they have struggled to get pregnant, experienced loss in utero, or felt the pain of holding their lifeless child in their arms. It is an unnatural experience. It is entirely out of the realm of creation God intended when he breathed life into dust and formed mud into flesh.
There are a few quotes about death that repeat in my mind when dealing with loss. “Life is a terminal illness” which is quite morbid and also true. From the moment we are born we begin to die. It is the only certainty in life. An uncomfortable certainty that we can always count on.
My other favorite quote is “To die will be an awfully big adventure” from Peter Pan. In one of the many movies that have been made retelling this story, he says it this way, “To live will be an awfully big adventure.” No matter the state, both quotes remain true. This little baby’s life was a short adventure of less than a week. And his death is an even bigger one, where he is with Jesus not feeling pain, fear, doubt, trouble, or any other difficulty of the human experience.
One thing is true of all life – it dies. Even when Jesus resurrected Lazarus, he didn’t live forever. The miracle was just for that day, for that disease. Does that mean it is less of a miracle? I’m not sure when Lazarus gave his final, final breath, but I doubt his family thought less of his resurrection then. Instead, they mourned the loss, again, while still praising God for the many days it had been since they last planned his funeral. Even hoping and praying for another resurrection doesn’t negate the first one. Dying twice – talk about an adventure!
The life-adventure of this baby’s family just became unfathomable. These parents woke up one day with two children and went to bed with one. It is hard to remember the miraculous adventure when in the shadow of loss. It is hard to see a healthy, growing baby while wondering why this one’s body didn’t work that way. There is really nothing that makes sense in this time of grief. There are no accurate words to say. There is little we can do to feel better. Time will pass and eventually we will think about this little baby with less tears in our eyes.
Today I cried. Yesterday I cried. Tomorrow I will probably cry.
And crying my way through the rest of life, I will take on the adventure.
