The Measure of a Life ...

I was reading the blog of a family who lost their 9 year-old daughter on Good Friday. She had struggled from birth with various illnesses and genetic disorders, eventually lost her sight, underwent a heart transplant ... The list of suffering went on and on. It was painful to read, and to reflect on the sense of loss this family must feel.

Losing a child - I came so close to experiencing that heartache. When I rock Emma to sleep in my arms each night, I silently thank God for allowing me to keep her, to know her, to watch her grow, and laugh, and teach me all He has in mind for me to learn through her. It has been a profoundly life-altering experience. And sometimes, when grief for the passing of my father overtakes me, I feel the need to check myself, apologize for mourning the passing of a man who had 75 years of life, as though this loss cannot possibly hold the same sense of pain, sadness, life-altering grief as the loss of someone who is young.

I am not attempting to compare the loss of a child and an old man - one had a chance to live, to love, to have children, travel, grow old, the other did not. However, I believe the measure of a life to lie not in years, but in the impact it has on those left behind. A newborn child never had a chance to be known, but do not deny the importance of that life to the grieving mother and father. The body found on the road-side may not have a name, and may be unclaimed, but someone is impacted by this very anonymity, the fact that a human being died so uncared for, so alone, so unclaimed. An old man passes away and leaves behind a wife, children, grandchildren, and friends, and there is also loss, and sadness, and grief, for what was, what is, and what will never be again - the common thread for all these being a life that once was is no more.

For me, it is the loss, the feeling of a void, the sense of confusion at the start of each new morning, as one's mind tries to focus on the day ahead and the checklist of loved ones to call upon includes a particular name, a particular face that comes to mind, words to say, thoughts to share ... and then the realization settles anew, he is no longer there, where he has been for so long, no longer accessible, no longer tangible, no longer alive.

My father was not an earthquake victim. He did not die in a tsunami. An immigrant to the United States, he served this country in the Army, but did not die the death of a war hero. He took his last breath at home, after years of suffering from various ailments. In the end it was terrible, for us to watch, for him to live through. He chose hospice, which turned out to be less beautiful and peaceful than we thought and were promised. But we were there for him until the end, the very end, his last breath drawn moments after my children kissed his forehead and said their hellos for the day - ultimately, their last good-byes. The void is great, the pain almost unbearable at times, the thought that he is truly gone not one I can wholly accept. Perhaps it is just that a life that means so much to others can never truly disappear - he is with us in memories, in the faces of the grandchildren who resemble him, in family anecdotes that feature him as the central character.

More than that, though, is the belief I have that he really is somewhere, whole again, free from the pain that ravaged his entire being for so long. During the last weeks of his life, he spent more time speaking with relatives and friends long since passed, than with those of us sitting vigil by his side. It was almost comforting to know he was receiving fellowship on a level we could not understand, could not offer ourselves, could not see, and for some, can not even fathom. The basis of a faith system, for me, is this idea that our souls, so unique to each one of us, so deep and profound and elusive to even fully define can not be killed, can not just end, go away, be silenced.

My father's soul lives on. The measure of his life in years may be over. But, spiritually, he thrives. For that, there is no measure.

Unpopular ...

In graduate school - as during most of my life - I had the temerity to voice an extremely unpopular opinion during a class on addiction. The professor posited the question, "What is addiction?", and I dared voice my belief that there is a facet of choice involved each time we - individuals with the power of free will - engage in a behavior. Whether it be over-eating, over-spending, drinking, gambling, insert-vice-of-choice-here, every single time we do it, we do it because we choose to do it.

We have become victims of everything. Advertisements lure us into a consumer-driven society, forcing us to work more so we may spend more. Smoking and drinking apparently are social ills that have no known cause, no known remedy - they creep in without warning, and take hold of our lives, allowing us no choice but to visit the local watering holes or frequent the corner liquor stores, stocking our shelves for the inevitable binge that will come upon us. The price of a pack of cigarettes is so exorbitant that some of us need public assistance to deal with our "illness".

My treatise on self-inflicted ills could rage on endlessly. But it would be as pointless as many of the ways society has brilliantly devised to "cope" with its ailments. What the real point is, is, if one were to glance at a timeline of human history, one would quickly notice that many of the people alive today have lived in a very privileged, relatively easy time span in human history. And yet we bemoan our trials as overwhelming, unique, and insurmountable. No.

Living in an impoverished state, wherein military factions control the food supply and we must watch as our children slowly fade before our eyes is insurmountable. Victims of horrible disasters - natural and otherwise - live with unique and overwhelming situations. Having too much money, or choosing to spend what you do have on things like alcohol, drugs, or whatever feeds your addiction is not unique. It is an old story, as old as human history, and at its roots has always been a single cause - ego centrism, the belief that the world is all about you, and only you suffer, and everyone should feel sorry for you.

Today, I began to get overwhelmed at all I need to do and all that is not "right" with my life. My refrigerator broke down following a big grocery shopping. All that food is lost, and the expense is overwhelming right now. But we still have food to eat thanks to the dry goods, and somehow the bill for a new fridge will get paid. It is no reason to fall apart. It is time to give thanks for all that is right - the proximity of stores to refill our stock, the abundance of wholesome foods with which to grow my children, the blessings of electricity to even possess a refrigerator in our home ... the fact that we even have a home to call our own.

I have changed a great deal since the day I raised my hand in that class to give my view of addiction. I still hold that unpopular view. Let's face it, many people make their living off the victimization of a large portion of society. I, however, could never go back to working with that population - my methods of self-help, self-actualization, self-anything go against the grain of current theology. As I get older, I no longer fight my other-way of thinking. It used to embarass me to hold other opinions, see other ways of problem-solving, or just be unable to understand the lack of ... common sense displayed by others. My daily mantra is no longer, Try to fit in, but rather, Be in the world, not of the world, a therapeutic prescription devoid of humanism, with deep roots. Try it sometime. And then go read Nie Nie today, and watch her video. It will certainly cure you if you too are suffering from the Woe is Me today.

Challenges and Blessings ...

I stumbled upon a new blog this weekend - it is on my sidebar. If you ever need a kick in the pants after a self-pity party, just click over on NieNie. She'll put it all in perspective. I was up until the wee hours of the morning reading her blog. I needed to see when it all changed for her, the moment she started to categorize her life into "before" and "after". There is a single picture that, once you know the story, captures both the essence of the loss and the joy of her journey to a new being - Easter Morning, 2008. I stared at that picture for quite some time, both before and after I had learned of her struggle, her suffering, her need to reinvent herself and yet cling to what made her herself before the accident. There is a prophetic air to her writing in the months before the accident, an alluding to fear, a sense of almost knowing this all must come tumbling down, it is too perfect, too blissful. Before Emma was born, I would marvel at the people I had either met or read about who seemed to be blessed by the struggles in their lives. Children who challenged them with their disabilities, disease that had ravaged their bodies and left them without much hope of a future, catastrophic events caused by the carelessness of others that devastated their families or their homes or their livelihoods - all horrible circumstances that one would think would cause a sense of despair to set in, a sense of pointlessness, a sense of, "I just cannot go on". And I would wonder at the absence of that, and at the joy that seemed to define their lives. I would fear the same things happening to me, to my family, most especially, to my children - because I doubted my own courage, my own abilities to cope, my own strength and faith. I am not out of the darkness yet, so I can not judge how I have weathered this storm in my life. But I have come to realize that there is a sense of being chosen that comes with struggles of these proportions. As though, God looks down at each of us and judges us to be strong enough to handle the gifts of the special circumstances we have been presented. And we call upon ourselves to meet the challenge, be worthy of the gift. Because that is what has come out of my challenge - a sense of wanting to be worthy of Emma, of all she has been through, of all that has been done to hopefully bring her home to us. There is also as an appreciation of all the normalcy that marked our lives before, and a desire to renew that in the aftermath of the turmoil that has marked it since. When you read NieNie's story, you will marvel at her faith, her strength, her willingness to go on. She speaks of the blessings in her life, and of her simple thankfulness at being alive. Hers is perhaps the most inspirational story I have read in a very long time - well, except, of course, for my little angel. But I am a bit biased.

THY will or Thy WILL ...

Sitting in Church on Sunday mornings, while the congregation would recite the Our Father, I wished them to slow down, reflect on the words they were saying. I do not believe it is a prayer through which one should rush. It is deep, meaningful, powerful - possessing many of the attributes we ascribe to God himself.

In particular, the phrase, Thy will be done should not be easily glossed over. I often flinch when it is enunciated, Thy will be done, instead of Thy will be done. Now, I am not a Biblical scholar, but I do believe that phrase is meant to capture our ... yielding to God's ways, God's intentions, God's plan, that which is beyond our understanding and control. In this instance, Emma's very life.

I prayed the Our Father repeatedly yesterday (In English and in Latin, just to cover all my bases), quite possibly the worst single day of my life. (How many times have I said that in the past two months?) And every time I came to Thy will be done, I realized the paradox of the situation - if I truly believed in what I was praying, then there is the very real possibility that His will may, in fact, not be what I want. That is why it is HIS will.

When the direness of Emma's current situation became clear to me, I asked that she be baptized. The Pastor was a wonderful man, warm and understanding, having lost a premie himself. He had also homeschooled his children, and started a small Christian school as an alternative for parents who feel unprepared to homeschool through high school. As he prayed for Emma, he said, "And let us remember, it is Thy will that is to be done ... ." I told him how ironic it was to me that he chose to emphasize that particular phrase, considering all my musings on it during the morning and afternoon hours. I truly felt a fellowship with this man, as though he had indeed been sent to assure me of my belonging in a world I oftentimes feel separate from, of others having walked this path before me and survived - and that it will be HIS will that is to be done, and that this is part of His will, whatever this may be.