I am feeling very sober about life lately. I didn't say I was down, just sober. Okay, sometimes I'm pretty down. Why can't we ever really get the point where we don't need to ask why anymore. My worldview, philosophies, theology, and additudes on such things have changed almost as much as my hairstyle over the three decades of my life. Occasionally, I start to think I've accepted it. That life is going to bite you very hard in the rear end, when you least expect it. That bad, bad things are going to happen to good (whatever it really means to be "good") people. And that I, having "accepted" this fact, am possibly safer somehow from the potential it holds. But this a well intentioned lie.
This week some dear friends of ours buried their first child. Their baby girl. She lived 10 days from her "just too early" birth. As I sat in the memorial service, using all the "adult" moxy I have acquired over the years to keep from blubbering like a baby, I heard a little girl, no more than five years old whispering to her Mommy behind us. In hushed tones, I heard the Mom explaining what the service was about to the child. Next came the precious little voice, whispering incredulously, "the
baby died??" She must have repeated this question three or four times before the mother was able to distract her thoughts. I sat there, fighting back violent, snotty emotion, and thinking that the little girl's honest question was the exact thought ping-ponging around in the head of every person in the room. Whether five or 85 years old. Some things don't get easier to understand with age.
Yesterday, I learned that a sweet baby boy in a another family we love, has been diagnosed with a very rare blood disorder, with a very poor prognosis. Again, my parent's heart aches to the point of breaking.
There are things we all try very hard not to think about. Topping the list, is our mortality, and maybe even higher on the list, that of our children. I guess the truth is, we all have an equal chance of encountering this... well, this "hell on earth" kind of pain. We might think that certain stratafiers like location, socio-economic status, racial heritage, and so on can lessen our risk. We might think that, but we'd be very wrong.
So today, I'm thinking about all the young, sorrowing mothers and fathers whose children have perished in other, less fortunate, parts of the world. In parts of Africa, Asia, Middle and South America, the Middle East, a woman who loves her precious babies as much as I love mine, will lose them today. They lost them yesterday. They will lose them tomorrow. Things like lack of a clean water supply, preventable childhood disease, the unthinkable acts of war, civil and otherwise.
I know this is a downer. But I don't want to forget that this suffocating, life-altering kind of pain is a common thing, everywhere. I want to carry the awareness like a daily weight. It will remind me to squeeze every possible drop of love, wonder, and amazement out of every momnet with my children. Dare I try to remind myself often, that I am not promised or entitled to even one more of these moments with either of them. Maybe, if I try to live here, in this place of sober honesty, I will do
all I can to stem the tide of unneccessary child mortality all over the world.
Can you imagine intimately knowing all the grieiving parents, everwhere, all at once. Such pain would destroy a mere mortal. God is not a man. Good thing.
I'm sharing the links to the websites of my favorite organizations working toward less "hell on earth". Please explore them. I promise I'll blog about light hearted things next time. Just keeping it real...
www.heifer.orgwww.waterwellsforafrica.orgwww.ifamericansknew.org
