The hardest thing is seeing other parents get to have their newborn babies and revel in the joy and excitement of new life. The dark side of me wants them to know that it's only a matter of time before they know loss too. It might not be a baby or one of their children, but it will be something. Loss seems to be an inevitable fact of life, even though we like to pretend that it isn't.
I had a baby too. I see new mothers out shopping with their babies riding high in the shopping carts, snuggled in their carseats. I want to walk up and say, "I just had a baby too." Everyone seems to forget. I didn't have a baby shower. Very few people gave us gifts. Little Cora was just assumed, taken for granted.
If we could look into the future and see all the pain and loss that our friends and family would one day have to endure, would we treat them with more love, tenderness, and dignity today? Would we have more patience for them? Would we express our love more freely? Would we be able to shake off some of the pride and self-absorption that normally shrouds so many of our relationships? I wonder what it would be like to love and care for people, not because of what they've done for you or because they have already suffered, but simply because one they will suffer. What would it be like to care for people in anticipation of their hurt and loss?
I have to admit that I look down now on people who know nothing of loss, of tragedy. People who don't know what it feels like to have the wind knocked out of their sails. To hurt so badly that you just want to disappear into thin air. People who can only offer religious platitudes and pat encouragement without really understanding what it's like to wrestle with God and how dark the grief process sometimes becomes. I see them as immature, naiive, and, to some extent, self-centered. How can you not be this way when everything in your life has gone to plan, when you've gotten everything you've wanted, exactly when you wanted it?
This life, this world, is so brutally unfair. You know that, but it doesn't really mean anything until you become a victim of its unfairness. That's when it becomes painfully clear that you are not exempt or immune at all. You are touchable, vulnerable, breakable, just like everyone else. And contrary to popular belief, loving God, serving Him, and obeying Him doesn't give you a free pass through this life. If this life gave us everything we wanted, without pain, loss, suffering, betrayal, or disappointment, then where would be the triumph of heaven? Heaven offers us the chance to not only be in the presence of Jesus, but to see all earthly wrongs, injustices, loss, and suffering set right once and for all. How can one fully embrace and long for all that heaven offers if he/she has no tears to cry or has not been aching for God's new day?
"Who then are the mourners? The mourners are those who have caught a glimpse of God's new day, who ache with all their being for that day's coming, and who break out into tears when confronted with its absence. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm of peace there is no one blind and who ache whenever they see someone unseeing. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one hungry and who ache whenever they see someone starving. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one falsely accused and who ache whenever they see someone imprisoned unjustly. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one who fails to see God and who ache whenever they see someone unbelieving. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one who suffers oppression and who ache whenever they see someone beat down. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one without dignity and who ache whenever they see someone treated with indignity. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm of peace there is neither death nor tears and who ache whenever they see someone crying tears over death. The mourners are aching visionaries. Such people Jesus blesses; he hails them, he praises them, he salutes them. And he gives them the promise that the new day for whose absence they ache will come. They will be comforted." - Lament for a Son, Nicholas Wolterstorff
