I struggled a bit with how to begin today’s blog. Last night I dug out some old files of writing. I was curious to read several past perspectives I remember having written regarding the events that unfolded on this date twelve years ago. There was not much—a few paragraphs I had started and not finished, relegating the completion of the story to the future—a time that has yet to come.
On one tattered yellow legal pad sheet I had written: “It was another cold January day, the ground blanketed with snow, a Chicago winter day like so many in the past, foreshadowing those to come in years hence…yet this particular day would be anything but ordinary…a life would be lost.” Apparently, that is as far as I got in the story. I had skipped a few lines on my paper and continued by trying to catch a few of my thoughts amidst the tears that had begun sliding down my cheeks. “I struggled to conceal the tears collecting in the corners of my eyes as I sat in school. I was substitute teaching and presently overseeing a study hall of six students—certainly no cause to cry. Sometimes I could muse objectively about the hidden pain few knew about. To many around me, I was just another adult walking through life. I often wondered about the hidden pain, of which I was unaware, in the lives of people I passed every day.” Again, the thoughts ended, to be briefly picked up again on a third sheet of paper.
“The unthinkable had happened. A normal Thursday turned into a front page news story for a day, then archived with countless others: a few hundred words and a minute’s worth of reading slipped into oblivion for those not directly involved in or affected by the accident.” It was only the beginning of the account written and rewritten in my head through the years about that day; On January 20th, 2000, my 21 month old son died after being hit by the van I was backing out of the driveway. There are years in which this date has slipped by without remembrance—whether it is grief avoidance on my part or God’s grace on my behalf, I have not tried to figure out. What I can identify as a definite impartation of God’s grace is the fact that the overriding memory I have about the most heart-breaking experience in my life is feeling the love, comfort, and peace of God as never before, and to a greater degree than I have ever since. I can’t explain how God enfolded my pain in such a tangible way as to make His goodness more real than the horror of the loss, but He did. Fear lost its hold on me as the worst I could imagine had happened and I found God present, his sufficiency real in every aspect and moment of the crisis. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing could separate me from His love, and with His love, I could go through anything.
Words of empathy, comfort, and compassion can seem hopelessly inadequate in the face of overwhelming grief; yet, the love that they express can be heart soothing, mending, and strengthening far beyond their immediate impact. Words from complete strangers, as well as from family and friends, supernaturally carried me through the rough days and weeks that followed the tragedy. But there was something even more powerful than words, and that was presence—the presence of God and that of people who simply showed up to be there with us—in silence and conversation, with tears and touch. What I found to be true with God, I likewise found true with people: the simple act of being there was an act of redeeming love and the first step in the miracle of healing.
God is good and He is faithful in all things. My life and hope are in Him alone.
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