If you think that time makes a difference to a mama missing a child who ran ahead to Heaven without her, you don’t know as much as you think you know.
Time does not heal all wounds-especially the kind that shatter a heart into a million pieces.
It takes time for the wound to scar over, but it doesn’t undo the damage.
So if you are wondering why your coworker still takes the day off on his child’s birthday or the anniversary of her child’s homegoing, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Years disappear when those milestones loom large.
It’s just as painful today as it was on THAT day when a bereaved parent has to face an unavoidable reminder that his or her child is gone, gone, gone.
I’m not diminishing anyone’s loss when I say this but child loss is unique.
If we lose a spouse, we cannot replace that person, but we can enjoy the same type of relationship with another one.
When we lose a parent, we cannot replace that individual or that relationship, but we all know age eventually makes a claim on every life. We anticipate (even if subconsciously) that younger folks will outlive the older ones.
A parent’s heart is not equipped to outlive their child.
And yet, some of us do.
“IT’S so WRONG, so profoundly wrong, for a child to die before its parents. It’s hard enough to bury our parents. But that we expect. Our parents belong to our past, our children belong to our future. We do not visualize our future without them. How can I bury my son, my future, one of the next in line? He was meant to bury me!”
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son
So if the bereaved parents in your life need extra space, extra grace, extra accommodation on those days when the loss is unavoidable don’t be surprised.
What SHOULD astonish folks is that we are able to function as well as we do on all the other days of the year without additional help.
We get up.
We go on.
That’s the real surprise.
thelifeididntchoose 