Lamentation

My friend posted this on her FB after the Snady Hook School shootings:

Lament....

"Lament enables individuals and communities to move from silence into transformative speech, speech that rages at God, but which ultimately has the capacity for and the goal of reconciling the suffering community to find healing, hope, and the ability to love God in spite of the presence of evil."

John Swinton, Raging with Compassion

I give myself 2 days of "lament" a year, it goes like this:

September 1, 1998--Was the due date for our 3rd addition to our family.  His name was Jack and he died before he could be born.  I was devastated.  I don't remember the date of his death, but rather I have always focused on the day that he was supposed to join our family.  Each September 1 I remember, some years are more difficult than others, but on that date I think of all the pain filled things that he would have had to endure and I am now thankful for that trial and that one day I will be reunited with my perfect little boy.

In the following days, I was accepted as a youth leader at Emmanuel Church I know I couldn't have been a youth leader with a new born.  It would've been too much work!

Then came a time in the church where people were really pressuring us to "join the three club" to have a 3rd child. At the time, the pain was too great to talk to people about their pressure--I kept it all to myself.  Then there was this pressure to have a baby in 2000.

I knew that I was done trying to have children, Kent, he could drop it today and start building a new family....I told him to get a new little wife...(joke)

December 21, 1991--My dad died.  December 14th I woke up at 8 am or so, Kent said to me, you have been talking in tongues in your sleep since 4 am.  I remember telling Kent that I must have needed it.  A short time later, we got the call that my biological dad had a car accident and that he was brain dead.  He died on the 21st and then we buried him December 28th.

Each Christmas season, I reflect back on that season, I was about to give birth to Melissa (Jan 4 was my original due date), it caused such great stress, for the 2 weeks after his accident, finding out he was brain dead and then the funeral--I was rocketed into the realization of a number of things, but one was who I could trust and who I absolutely could not.

Kent and I learned big lessons.

So, both days get me talking.  Now, we reflect on who Jack would be, musical, athletic, friend to Max, protector to Melissa, good at school?  We now dream of the day that we will be reunited. We talk about how funny my Dad was and what a great source of wisdom--how much he would've loved to see our little family grow and again there will be a day we will see them again.

So, December 21, September 1.  Both days that I could crawl under a rock and die, I do have tears, but I have learned that I remember, I lament, I reflect then I rejoice...for the promise of new life.

So, Jackson and Dad, you are missed today so much, but we rejoice in the knowledge of where you are and that we will have a family reunion one day.