i am back from the village. back from burying my young friend. from throwing dirt on this coffin while holding on to his younger sister. back from weeping with his mom as she said goodbye to her only son. back from the hills of his fathers village where his mother will leave the body of her boy. back to where? back to what?
i'm not sure.
this week has been a blur as it always is when death is involved. death unroofs us. it undoes time and calendar. it upside-downs our days and our priorities. it calls us to the very important things only. it cleans off the lens that we see our lives through. it focuses. it slows. it quiets our madly spinning worlds.
15 year olds aren't supposed to die. they just aren't. little girls shouldn't have to lose their big brothers, parents shouldn't have to bury their children, especially the ones who aren't grown yet. it's just backwards. it's just not right. four days ago, mugisha timothy died of the lymphoma that his been in his body for over 2 years. the week before, he'd turned 15.
four days ago i was writing here, waiting for mike to come home with the kids and the car, so i could go see him- he had something to say. but just before they arrived, his mom called - "come! timoth is dying!" and he was.
when i got to his house it was crowed and hysterical and he lay in bed mouth open, and those half closed far off eyes that i've known so many times before. he was going. his chest didn't rise. his heart didn't beat. his body was quiet and still now- but his soul was flying.
"move!" the crowd shouted. "get him to the ambulance! he needs blood!"
"no. let him be. he is gone. bring his mother. send the ambulance away."
i hated saying those words. i hated being the one who was saying them. the finality of them. the endness of them. the permanence. the hopelessness in them. gone. gone. away. but they were true and i should have been the one to say them. i, the same one who'd said, 'it's cancer.' in the first place.
this ending was what we'd been praying for. it was a good answer- as good as you can get when you are talking about a child dying. i had been praying that when he went, he would go quickly and with out fear. i know him. i know he can even handle pain, but fear, he didn't want. and those were both answered. he was weak but walking that morning, and that afternoon, he died in the arms of his mother.
the arms that first held him when he took his first breath. the arms that walked through life with him. arms that embraced him when he fell down, when he did well in school, when he'd had a bad day, when he'd found out he had cancer, when he could no longer make it to the bathroom alone, when he needed help to drink. those arms held him as he left this world. perhaps that is the only blessing in the death of a child- that they might be able to die in the arms of their mother - there is not a safer place than that.
it's hard to be a doctor and a close friend to the same person. it's hard to be a parent, and watch a child dying, it's hard to be a doctor and know there is nothing else i can do to make it stop . it's hard to watch a friend losing their child. it's hard to know some small part of that pain that knows when the child is gone- that is when the deepest suffering begins.
the next few hours i sat as my friend poured out all the secrets of a mothers heart who just lost her first born, her only son. she screamed every bit of it- all the injustice, all the grief, even the guilt, all the anguish- but mixed with her unshakeable faith that her God knows best- that we see through the glass dimly- that His ways are above our ways. she cried and she wailed and she beat the floor-she told God that she wasn't tired yet of caring for her boy so why had he taken him? she buried her face in her hands and begged to know how she could go on with out him, her beautiful smart boy. and i cried and cried and felt it- all the awfulness of death- all the hardness of the last 2 years as the cancer ate at him- all the imagining of my own child lying only in body on my bed, never to hear his voice again.
but i also watched as she climbed into those everlasting arms. arms that can handle the weeping and the pounding and the anger and the calling out of unfair and wrong. arms that filled that house, that carried tim home and held those of us left behind. i watched as she called out, "but God you are still good!" i listened as this brave friend thanked God for her 15 years with her son, as she knelt beside his body.
now begins a new journey. the journey of absence. and empty and no longer and not. the journey of a space on the couch that wasn't there before. and of sorting clothes that still smell like the one we loved. and reading messages from a few days before and not being able to delete them. the journey of deciding what to hold on to, what to cling to, what to keep the same. the journey of trying to figure out how to go on now, what to do with the time that was so full of someone who's gone. the journey that while anticipated, was not planned for. the one with no map filled with lapse and pause. the one with tears then slowly laughing and returning tears. the one of remembering. the one of allowing the process. of letting go of the grief but not the person. of forgiving ourselves and even forgiving death itself. a journey that will continue to ask and ask again, why? for what? how come? the one that can fill us with deep sadness and longing, but can also bring us to new places of understanding and connecting. a journey that can awaken us to the things that really matter, that can help us to let go of the small bits, to reach toward each other. slowly we will feel the warmth again. slowly we will see the light.
when we left the village yesterday, i hugged his mom goodbye and told her i loved her and cried into her hair.
"someday soon we'll laugh again." i said
"you are right- thanks for everything. i know how much you care."
"good because i do. and beas i'm praying for you."
"God is still good doctor."
that is what we are left with. we are left with each other and the unchanging love of God. this is life. and death. real. being there for each other no matter what. the good parts and the awful ones. pieces in each others lives. part of a plan that we may never know or understand. but carried in those everlasting arms.
i'm not sure.
this week has been a blur as it always is when death is involved. death unroofs us. it undoes time and calendar. it upside-downs our days and our priorities. it calls us to the very important things only. it cleans off the lens that we see our lives through. it focuses. it slows. it quiets our madly spinning worlds.
15 year olds aren't supposed to die. they just aren't. little girls shouldn't have to lose their big brothers, parents shouldn't have to bury their children, especially the ones who aren't grown yet. it's just backwards. it's just not right. four days ago, mugisha timothy died of the lymphoma that his been in his body for over 2 years. the week before, he'd turned 15.
four days ago i was writing here, waiting for mike to come home with the kids and the car, so i could go see him- he had something to say. but just before they arrived, his mom called - "come! timoth is dying!" and he was.
when i got to his house it was crowed and hysterical and he lay in bed mouth open, and those half closed far off eyes that i've known so many times before. he was going. his chest didn't rise. his heart didn't beat. his body was quiet and still now- but his soul was flying.
"move!" the crowd shouted. "get him to the ambulance! he needs blood!"
"no. let him be. he is gone. bring his mother. send the ambulance away."
i hated saying those words. i hated being the one who was saying them. the finality of them. the endness of them. the permanence. the hopelessness in them. gone. gone. away. but they were true and i should have been the one to say them. i, the same one who'd said, 'it's cancer.' in the first place.
this ending was what we'd been praying for. it was a good answer- as good as you can get when you are talking about a child dying. i had been praying that when he went, he would go quickly and with out fear. i know him. i know he can even handle pain, but fear, he didn't want. and those were both answered. he was weak but walking that morning, and that afternoon, he died in the arms of his mother.
the arms that first held him when he took his first breath. the arms that walked through life with him. arms that embraced him when he fell down, when he did well in school, when he'd had a bad day, when he'd found out he had cancer, when he could no longer make it to the bathroom alone, when he needed help to drink. those arms held him as he left this world. perhaps that is the only blessing in the death of a child- that they might be able to die in the arms of their mother - there is not a safer place than that.
it's hard to be a doctor and a close friend to the same person. it's hard to be a parent, and watch a child dying, it's hard to be a doctor and know there is nothing else i can do to make it stop . it's hard to watch a friend losing their child. it's hard to know some small part of that pain that knows when the child is gone- that is when the deepest suffering begins.
the next few hours i sat as my friend poured out all the secrets of a mothers heart who just lost her first born, her only son. she screamed every bit of it- all the injustice, all the grief, even the guilt, all the anguish- but mixed with her unshakeable faith that her God knows best- that we see through the glass dimly- that His ways are above our ways. she cried and she wailed and she beat the floor-she told God that she wasn't tired yet of caring for her boy so why had he taken him? she buried her face in her hands and begged to know how she could go on with out him, her beautiful smart boy. and i cried and cried and felt it- all the awfulness of death- all the hardness of the last 2 years as the cancer ate at him- all the imagining of my own child lying only in body on my bed, never to hear his voice again.
but i also watched as she climbed into those everlasting arms. arms that can handle the weeping and the pounding and the anger and the calling out of unfair and wrong. arms that filled that house, that carried tim home and held those of us left behind. i watched as she called out, "but God you are still good!" i listened as this brave friend thanked God for her 15 years with her son, as she knelt beside his body.
now begins a new journey. the journey of absence. and empty and no longer and not. the journey of a space on the couch that wasn't there before. and of sorting clothes that still smell like the one we loved. and reading messages from a few days before and not being able to delete them. the journey of deciding what to hold on to, what to cling to, what to keep the same. the journey of trying to figure out how to go on now, what to do with the time that was so full of someone who's gone. the journey that while anticipated, was not planned for. the one with no map filled with lapse and pause. the one with tears then slowly laughing and returning tears. the one of remembering. the one of allowing the process. of letting go of the grief but not the person. of forgiving ourselves and even forgiving death itself. a journey that will continue to ask and ask again, why? for what? how come? the one that can fill us with deep sadness and longing, but can also bring us to new places of understanding and connecting. a journey that can awaken us to the things that really matter, that can help us to let go of the small bits, to reach toward each other. slowly we will feel the warmth again. slowly we will see the light.
when we left the village yesterday, i hugged his mom goodbye and told her i loved her and cried into her hair.
"someday soon we'll laugh again." i said
"you are right- thanks for everything. i know how much you care."
"good because i do. and beas i'm praying for you."
"God is still good doctor."
that is what we are left with. we are left with each other and the unchanging love of God. this is life. and death. real. being there for each other no matter what. the good parts and the awful ones. pieces in each others lives. part of a plan that we may never know or understand. but carried in those everlasting arms.
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