I let Eden watch
Charlotte's Web several weeks ago. She had handled the drama that is
Bambi with oblivious delight and dearly loves farm animals, so I thought, why not
Charlotte's Web? The talking and singing barnyard beasts will be right up her alley, and apparently, the significance of death is still far from her radar.
And I was right, she loved it. She still loves it, in fact, despite this conversation that we had at the end:
E: "Mommy, where did that spider go? Why is the pig crying?"
S: [Caught a little off guard because WHERE WERE THESE QUESTIONS DURING BAMBI?? and yet, desperately trying to sound completely casual and nonchalant] "Well, baby, she got old and died."
S:
Oh no. That had to be way too blunt. Where is the well-spring of mother-wisdom that is supposed to miraculously appear at these moments??
[Long pause.]
E: ME????
S:
Nooooo. She can't be... it's not possible... she doesn't mean....
E: ME AND MOMMY DIE AND GET OLD????
So, to recap.
Parental To-Do List:
1) Scar child for life.
Check.
**********
I went for a walk in a big cemetery recently. I love cemeteries. I think I've mentioned all this before, probably more than once. I know it's weird, but I just think they are utterly fascinating places. When I was a kid I always wanted to live next to a cemetery when I grew up. In fact, I thought for a long time that one of the coolest jobs in the world would be being a groundskeeper at a cemetery, keeping everything beautiful and tidy and well-loved.
The cemetery that I visited a few weeks ago is fairly large. As I walked through the front gates and made my way down the path toward the older section near the back, I noticed how the lifespans recorded on the gravestones progressively shortened. Not so very long ago old age must have seemed a gift, a family unmarked by the death of the young and the seemingly strong must have seemed a marvel.
I stood for a long time at one small family plot in particular. It belonged to a man who over the course of eight years lost a two-year-old son, his thirty-four-year-old wife, and finally, the last remaining person in his immediate family, a five-year-old daughter. He then lived on into his eighties. His grave was next to theirs though, and there were no others. I spent a long time wondering about his life. The Before and the After and the What Came Next of his story. I wonder what he thought of his own personal longevity and what he did with the rest of his life. I wonder what he thought of his story and if there is anyone living who still knows it.
On my walk I saw one phrase repeated again and again and again:
gone but not forgotten. And next to more than a few of the gravestones bearing these very words, were other gravestones, so old and weather-beaten that all inscriptions had been completely worn away and only the presence of the rocks themselves bore witness to the fact that someone once had lived and died and been buried there. I kept wondering if there was anyone left alive who might still know those names - who might still say,
you are gone but not forgotten. Or, with the eventual death of friends and family, and the power of wind and rain on rock, had their very existence been obliterated from the memory of the world? How many, in that cemetery alone, were both gone
and forgotten? How many, in all the ages of this world, have come and gone in a blink?
**********
A friend of ours from college, an extremely talented musician, is on the brink of releasing his second album,
The Cymbal Crashing Clouds. One of his songs - "A Last Time For Everything" - keeps circling through my mind over and over. I'll post the lyrics here someday hopefully, once I make sure it's okay. But three miscarriages in four years have left me thinking a lot about last times these days.
On Saturday, I threw a birthday party for my sweet little girl, and despite my utter lack of crafty-supermom-Susie Homemaker-skills, I worked as hard at it as I could to make it beautiful.
She's three. She won't remember.
But this may be the one and only three-year-old birthday party I ever get to throw, and I
will remember.
**********
So, that. I'm no longer at all sure that we will have any more children. I've stopped planning it out. And it's not because I'm being melodramatic or depressed. It's because I've been brought face-to-face three times now with a reality that all those people who died a century or two ago probably never had the luxury of forgetting. There is a last time for everything, and by and large, we don't get to decide when that last time is. A last birthday party, a last child, a last breath. Our life is a series of last moments, the vast majority of which slip by without us even noticing, and sooner or later we each experience them all.
But Ben's song reminds me that there are other
lasts worth noting. Time is winding down on more than just our lives on this earth. And one day, when we have finally set aside all the temporary things of this mortal life, something else will come to an end.
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Revelation 21:4)
Last tears.
Last mourning.
Last pain.
Last death.
There is a last time for these too.
**********
July 30th was my Judah's due date. For awhile, there was a part of his life that had me looking forward. Now it is all looking back. Despite what this long post on death might lead you to believe, I'm actually feeling okay. I think, maybe, the worst of the grief has passed. Those sharp pangs of heartbreak and anger are fairly rare now. The depression seems to be lifting. It's never quite the same though, is it? You recover from an illness, but how do you ever fully recover from the death of someone you loved? I miss Judah, and it makes me sad that he isn't here. And he's never going to be here. So, as long as I live, how can there not be some part of me that remains a little sad? I'm not sure how to recover from the missing him. I'm not sure how to let go of the great big dream of the how and the when and the where of my own children. I had a plan. It's not remotely coming to pass. And I'm coming to terms with that.
**********
One last song, and I'll call it a night. :)
I've mentioned before that I love JJ Heller's album,
When I'm With You. In her song, "Olivianna," (which is, of course, about death) there are the lines:
You're going home love
Where you belong
I've heard the song many, many times, but I
really heard those words for the first time the other day. I think, so often, that Judah and my other two babies are supposed to be here, with me - that here is where they belong. And it's true - we do belong with those we love. They do belong with me. And that, of course, is why their absence is so painful. But we are all only
here temporarily. And soon we are all going home to be with the One we love, and the One who loves us. So, they are now home where they have always belonged. And one day, someday, whenever my last day comes, I will be too.
**********
I'm so very glad that no matter what our gravestones look like a hundred years from now there is Someone who knows us all by name.
