Tuesday's Trust - How We Grieve When Our Precious Child is Still Alive…

Tuesday's Trust

How We Grieve When Our Precious Child is Still Alive…

So often the people we love are in trouble much earlier than we may realize, and it’s when they are plummeting that our grief actually begins. As they are still alive, just like emotional hostages, we are forced to watch them decline and slowly destroy themselves. We feel impotent, helpless. In our book, we describe watching our children drown while we stand at the edge of the pool, our feet embedded in quicksand. And then, once they died, the experience was vaguely familiar, as though we had been watching it unfold as bystanders...

~written by grieving mothers in the book, Griefland

How do you put words on the unfathomable? How do you share what you have lived even while you were dying? It defies words. Only tears can communicate. 

Our daughter was on a downward spiral on a fast train to nowhere, only it seemed to have the speed of the mighty jet. We encouraged her to graduate from high school early so that she could get a new start, which she graciously did. She would be starting college early while her friends completed the final courses of their senior year, as she had enough credits to graduate early.  

I remember going to her Freshman Orientation a few days before her first college semester. The parents went to a series of meetings during the day while the newly Freshman students would be attending their own series of meetings. Then we would come together for some of the meetings. The day then culminated that night into a very special dinner in which the three of us, mother-father-and-daughter would dine with one of the professors amidst inspirational talks and singing. The poignancy of the moment was revealed when the singers came out with their inspirational song. Despite the public setting, tears flowed down my face as I recognized the grace of the moment and the inspirational song revealed this opportunity provided for my daughter to turn her life around. The tears flowed and flowed. No one said a word about them. What was to be said? Some things are better left unspoken. 

And, for that first semester as she would join her brother in this school, this very strong Christian university which had given him a second chance at life to which he had readily responded, our daughter also responded well to the opportunity. Upon sending in her course-work and her Scholastic Achievement Test scores, she learned that she had qualified not only for the Hope Scholarship just as her brother had, but that she would also be awarded the prized Presidential scholarship from the university itself. Her grades that first semester were wonderful; her new friendships blossomed; her relationship with her brother deepened as he felt he had his old sister, his real sister back. She was herself. She was humbled. She was happy. She laughed. She cried. She was authentic. Her lively sense of humor drew many people to her. She was even invited to join the school's female rugby team. She was getting involved and was thriving. Until the next semester when she didn't… 

Thus the first paragraph of this post, written by other mothers watching disaster form all around them even as they felt they were losing their very lively, bright, quick-witted children who seemed to have the world by the tail, right before their eyes as they watched them begin to suddenly plummet into the destructive depths of the netherworld, resonated with my devastating journey with my child. We were all "losing" our children before we lost them, and we could not seem to stop the madness, Even though we would try, with all of our hearts, but it was ultimately to no avail as we would watch their self-destructive course to its final culmination, to their demise. 

The only thing holding us together is that it is Not over. Not final. God has the final word. And His word is more powerful than all the evil forces put together. But we must wait to see it. And that is where trust comes in, That is where we are called to see with the eyes of faith, and know that God is good. Only He can redeem the time that the locusts have eaten. And He will. And He has. And our baby girl is with Him, once again thriving, and happy, and fulfilled, but this time for all eternity…

Picture, thanks to ~In Memory of Lost Loved Ones
Quote, from http://www.griefland.com/category/about-the-book/