2 posts tagged “death”
The church was packed. Family, friends, neighbors, teachers, classmates, Cub Scouts, you name it.
This was a boy, and a family, that people know. Knew. That people are glad to know; to have known.
One uncle's comments in celebration of Luke's life included these words: "It was a freak accident; it was nobody's fault. I bear no anger toward anybody about this." And you could tell he meant it.
Here's what the mom and dad had to say, in today's local paper.
http://www.salinereporter.com/stories/090408/loc_20080904001.shtml
And she means it too. She's just that kind of person. She truly, truly wants people to pray for and forgive the man who killed her son.
Because it WAS a freak accident.
High noon, not a cloud in the sky, no drugs or alcohol involved, a 40-year-old man, father of a 7-year-old boy of his own, plowed into the back of their stopped minivan. At high speed. Until today I was racking my brain trying to understand how on earth this could have happened. He was a local; it's not like he couldn't have known that was a 4-way stop. Why wasn't he at least slowing down as he apprached the intersection?
Here's how. I heard about it this evening.
He had just given blood, and was feeling lightheaded, and stepped on the gas instead of the brake, approaching that 4-way stop.
Here was a man trying to do the right thing, giving blood; and he killed a boy. A boy his own son's age.
Can you imagine what he is going through right now?
So seriously. Pray for him, forgive him, cover him with love, too.
And the parents.
Early Sunday morning, their beloved son was taken off the ventilator, and wheeled into an operating room, where doctors did everything they could... to make sure OTHER children would live. They donated their child's organs.
The dad was reported to have said, in making this decision, "I'm not sure this is what I want to do... but it's what Luke would have wanted to have done. He would have wanted to know that other children could live, even if he couldn't."
Who knows why? Who knows why?
The web of our lives is woven together more intricately than we can know.
But that's love. That's love. To take your own family's tragedy, and answer the prayers of other families whom you will never meet. To offer prayers and care to the man who killed your child. That's IT; that's what it's all about.
That's love.
Go hug your children. Kiss your spouse. Smile at a stranger on the street.
Love one another.
I adore the music of Sara Groves.
I don't generally care much for Christian rock -- I hear so much more divinity in traditional choral music -- but I can never get enough of Sara Groves. Her music is richly haunting, and her lyrics deceptively simple, many-layered. She so richly expresses things I need to hear; and almost every song of hers makes me think. Hard.
Tuesday afternoon I was thinking of this song from her "All Right Here" album:
"You Cannot Lose My Love"
You will lose your baby teeth
At times you'll lose your faith in me
You will lose a lot of things
But you cannot lose my love
You may lose your appetite
Your guiding sense of wrong and right
You may lose your will to fight
But you cannot lose my love
You will lose your confidence
In times of trial your common sense
You may lose your innocence
But you cannot lose my love
Many things can be misplaced
Your very memories be erased
No matter what the time or space
You cannot lose my love
You cannot lose
You cannot lose
You cannot lose my love
***
That last stanza made me cry the first time I heard it. My husband's grandmother had died not long before, after a long period of progressively worsening dementia. My own grandfather was dying, and following a similar course. It was very hard for me to watch the diminishment of these beloved people, especially as my own small children were doing the exact opposite. Every day my son became a tiny bit more capable, and every day my grandfather became a tiny bit less.
Dementia is sort of horrifying and terrifying to witness. After all, what am I -- the "I" that thinks these things -- if not a being capable of rational thought? What am I if not my own unique collection of memories and experiences? And if those memories disappear, if my intellect disappears, what will be left of me? I know dementia is not catching, and yet, I have always found it extremely disquieting, if only because it is a reminder of our own fragility and impermanence.
Then I heard this song.
When it came to the part about how, "Your very memories be erased, but you cannot lose my love" this expressed so strongly to me how the essential person-hood -- the soul -- of my grandfather was separate from his intellect and his rapidly vanishing memories, and how there was still something precious there. Something God loved. Something I could love. And I cried, hearing it; but it was a good kind of cry.
In a smaller way, at various times, I have lost many of the other things mentioned in this song -- lost and in some cases, regained. So I find this song comforting, as a reminder of the one thing, of all things, that I cannot lose.
***
Tuesday afternoon this song came to me in a new way.
(This was why that vote of confidence from Precious Princess later in the evening was doubly precious.)
Had a difficult phone call from Eldest Son's principal. Heart sinking, feeling defeated, not knowing what to do or how to approach the kid, how to solve this particular problem and how to steer him away from repeating it.
Unlike me, I prayed. I do not have a strong instinct to pray -- wasn't raised with it -- and it is not usually my first reaction when things get tough. But this time, rather than let my mind race about like a frantic hamster on a wheel, getting nowhere except exhausted, I decided to pray.
Song lyrics came into my head, together with their melodies.
First came, "Love one another, love one another, love one another... as I have loved you."
Then came the song above, the Sara Groves song.
This time I knew that it was not only a comforting reminder to me, but a directive as well.
I had to find a way to reach my son, to impress upon him the seriousness of the incident, to help him think of a way to make amends, to help him decide for himself that it was wrong and he shouldn't do it again, help him take ownership of his misbehavior... and yet, and yet, avoid making him feel bereft of my love.
Make him feel that no matter what else he loses -- in this case, his temper and his impulse control -- he cannot lose my love.
Ranting and raving was going to do more harm than good.
He's a stubborn mule, that kid; the harder you pull, the harder he digs in his heels.
I needed to not give him a reason to dig in his heels on this.
I think I managed it. By the time everyone went to bed, I was pretty sure he had taken ownership of the problem, taken it seriously, taken a step toward making amends... and still believed I loved him.
No matter what the time or space, he cannot lose my love.
