There are no words to describe how my mind replays those, most precious 21 days of my life, every March; with no audience, who can hear it.
For years, I poured out my sorrow, in a dramatic presentation of the book of Esther, to my children. Now, they are beyond that presentation. "Not again mother!", they say, with eyes rolling back in their heads.
Truly "there is a balm in Gilead, who heals the sinsick soul". My Jesus hears my cries, in March. Cries for my sad state. Cries that there is little comfort, in life, when a child is gone from your maternal grasp. Cries, that unbelief blooms, so rampantly, in my soul, through this season. Cries, that mothers don't appreciate the blessing of childbirth. Cries, that abortion is still so prevalent a part of our country's economic system. Cries, that I have done so little of the commitments to impress my remaining children of the importance of the things that God impressed upon me, through my griefs.
Every comfort seems to go deeply into my soul, as deeply as the cries are sobbed.
cries from my bubbles of grief...
22 years later, I can still remember, 22 cars at a 21 day old’s funeral. I remember the men who took the mantle of leadership and helps. I remember loved ones, from home, held me up. I was numb. I remember the blurr of hands that they had to guide me from one station to another. I couldn’t believe that the love of my life was gone. His birth was like Christmas,"Mother, it's a boy!" When I looked into his eyes at birth, I was his. Maternal love is like that. Nobody else matters. "I am sorry, mommy, I am afraid your baby has died." 21 days of love and life between. Spinal meningitis had taken him from my maternal grasp.
Engorged and in pain and in fevers and in grief, all of those sensorious things to remind me that something had happened completely outside of my realm of imagination. Even my dad said “everything that we do our whole lives is to keep us from standing at the graveside of our children. I don’t know how you can stand it?” I didn’t see him cry, but he sat with me in the front of the church, without a smirk at all. That, could have been one of my earliest comforts. I would have medicated me, looking back. I was definitely sick. Everything was like a dream, from the moment Dr. Bacha looked into my face, maybe until, well, I don’t know until when. It was dream like. Pain like nothing else, physical, mental smell pain, heart pain. I felt angels protect me from negatives. Some people said things that didn’t even penetrate the fog and others said nothing and it comforted. It was as though the angels themselves only stood aside when it was something useful for comfort, otherwise they stood in front of me. Ty and Sharon were constant comfort. They were the human angels.
I simply cannot tell how the comforts were magnified because the pain was so great. I closed my eyes and all I could see was his face. White and then blue and then the needles in his skull that they put. I couldn’t help anymore by the time we got to the hospital. The nurses talking in letters and codes and getting me out of the room to care for my 2 year old. Everybody trying to focus me away from the death. He’s gone. What else is there?
You have another child! You will have other children. Does that comfort? NO! not at that moment. He is gone. I can’t go home. I will just walk the streets looking for him, for the rest of my life. He must be there somewhere? That is irrational, but that is the sentiment. I will walk and look for him. I will cry until I cry my heart out. There is nothing else.
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