(I came upon this quote on the internet with no source listed.)
"Death does not unmake a [parent]. If anything, we need to be more resourceful in our [parenting]. There are no parenting books, no theories on how to parent a dead child. But we still parent. We just make it all up, each day, as we go along, hurting and healing. Parenting is just tailoring maternal [or paternal] love to fit each child. We do that with our dead babies too. We wonder which flower would honor their lives, we relish speaking their names. We collect drawings of butterflies, quotes that touch our hearts, we write their names on the sand and in the snow.
We remember. We remember all the time. We remember the love. Also, the pain. That odd quality we have about us... it's because we have something special. We have extra love in our hearts. Love that can't translate into choosing the safest rear-facing car seat, so it becomes love that wonders and meanders, most times with nowhere to go. So this love with no port, it flutters about. Sometimes it bursts out through tears, stinging sobs. Other times it makes for a sideways smile when we remember our child. And it always makes us seem just a teeny bit off. Because we are. A little person is missing from our arms. But all the love for them is here, inside us, bubbling away in everything we do."
With Mother's Day and Memorial Day recently passed, and Father's Day coming up, many people are hurting instead of celebrating. Parents who have lost children physically or emotionally, and children who have lost parents as well.
It is easy to feel so alone in the pain of a loved one lost. The pain is easily dismissed because it is not visible. Broken bones are commiserated and there is a known healing time period. Broken hearts are invisible and there is not a specified healing time period. The grief will stay with you forever, you learn to grow around it and with it. "People tend to believe that grief shrinks over time / What really happens is that we grow around our grief"
I believe that those we love are not lost forever. They have moved on to a new part on the journey of their life. Their souls are still alive in a spiritual realm while we remain in a physical realm. When we die or pass on, truly pass on to the next stage of our lives, we will have the chance to reunite with them forever.
I don't understand why some people die 'before their time', before the natural time we believe they should have died. I don't agree with it, and I have told God that we will have to agree to disagree about this until I can stand face to face and learn from God about the whys behind the tragedies.
I do believe that God has a divine plan of happiness that we cannot comprehend with mortal minds. I do believe God does not cause all the trials in our lives, and I do believe that God does not always prevent the bad things from happening. This is supposed to be for our good. I can see the growth and the good things that arise like a phoenix from the ashes, but the burning fire hurts so badly. I do have faith that all will be made right, somehow, when we leave the mortal world for a spiritual realm where we will leave our physical limitations behind.
There is much to live for even in the midst of the worst hardships, and we can have faith that we will survive, and we can choose to become stronger. The trials don't make us strong, our resilience and good choices make us strong.
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