I sit in my bedroom this Easter Sunday. Eating chocolates I don't like. Trying to be happy. Trying to be optimistic. Trying to have the attitude that so many seem to want me to have. The attitude I feel like I should have. That...holy attitude. That "God is perfect and God is holy and God is in control" attitude. That attitude that just blindly bows to the authority of God. I wish my heart was that submissive. I wish my heart was that trusting. I wish my mind was that...peaceful.
Instead, I find myself hurting. I find myself tearful. I find myself drained from all the birth/death plans made this past week. I find myself pissed off that I'll be spending my anniversary celebration at a funeral home. Signing papers. Picking urns. Thinking about the service we want to hold for Everett. Talking about how to best tell the boys what's going on. How to tell them that they have a little brother they won't know. How not to tell them made up ideas that sound Christian and Biblical. How not to scare them to death about going to sleep. How to help them understand why Mommy and Daddy are stressed out, tired, and sad.
And then you think about the raw truth. This is the only Easter. The only anniversary. Keith's only birthday. The only one that all of our children will be living. This is it. For the rest of our lives, one of our children will be gone. Dead.
And so I've been trying. To find that "Chrisitan" attitude where nothing sucks. Where nothing is actually painful. Where everything has this spiritual meaning. Where it's all for the greater good. Where I can be ... happy that my child is not in MY arms. And, fittingly, I find myself pondering heaven. Trying to decide where we get the idea that babies go into the arms of Jesus. I mean, is that true? Or do we just want to believe that? The Bible doesn't say much about the death of babies and their place in eternity. We believe that "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.....they are precious in His sight" "for the Bible tells me so". But most of what we know about heaven is that you must believe. And that there's this crazy class system of mansions, where some who are there will be poor and some will be rich, but we will all live on streets of gold (how screwed up does that sound?!?!). I've seen books and heard thoughts that babies who die become angels. Well, that certainly isn't in the Bible. Dead people do not become angels. Angels are separate beings, even the producers of City of Angels got that much right. And Constantine. But somehow Chrisitans don't get it.
So I find myself frustrated and hurt by the lack of solid answers about what's going to happen to my baby. I find myself short (at least in my head) with people who buy into the made up stories of what happens to babies. I can't believe (right or wrong) that babies who die go to hell. Nor will I tell myself (or my boys) a lie that Everett becomes an angel. I don't know if the class system of heaven is real or if it's an analogy of what knowing Christ and His peace is all about. Because, according to Jesus, heaven is knowing your Father and His Son. So does a level of faith that is deeper feel like a richer life? I would have to think so. Is that what makes heaven so wonderful? The depth to which you KNEW God and loved Jesus? So where does that leave the babies? Where does that leave my Everett?
I don't know. And I'm not sure I'll get my answer.
So I'll do what humans are great at doing, mixing some truths with some hopes of what heaven will be like to help settle my heart. I don't know what happens in heaven. I don't know if there is a normal life where you age (sorta) and have conversations and big parties with all your friends and family when you see them. I don't know if all you do sing to God all day, never seeing the next soul beside you. I don't know if you get an actual body or if you float all ghostly around the metropolis of heaven. I just don't know.
But if I could hope for an eternity for my little boy that will not know my face, it would be something like this:
There's a mother who died during childbirth who never held her baby boy. She is laying there, still in her awful hospital gown, arms open wide for my little boy. She holds him to her chest. Warms him with her love. She counts his toes and fingers. She kisses his head and his cheeks. She tells him how much he's loved. And then there's a daddy who never held his son. He takes him and cradles him in the crook of his arm. He discovers every hair on Everett's head. He knows every curve of his face. And he tells him how much he's loved. They will take him to Jesus and He will hold him. And Jesus will cry for us, his birth family, as He holds my Everett,and tells his heaven family all about us. And my Everett will never know a moment alone. He will never feel the pain of this world. He will never know the hurt of deceit. He will never experience the heartbreak of losing anyone or anything. He will never know fear, confusion, or doubt. Everett will only know love. The kind of love that can only be given by parents who have yearned for a child. The kind of perfect love that only comes from heaven. The kind of love that Jesus taught. The kind of love he will know from us, if only for a short time.
Everett's heaven parents will love him. But they will also make sure he knows that his birth parents love him. They will tell him of the tears we shed for him from the moment we knew we would not get to raise him. They will tell him of the agony of loss we feel by not having him here with us. They will tell him of his brothers. They will remind him every heavenday that his birth family misses him. That we think about him. That we will never forget him. That his heavenday is bittersweet for us all.
Easter is about the hope of heaven. It is about the power of love over the grave. I don't know much about heaven. Everett will not conquer the grave. But I do know the love of Jesus will conquer MY fears. It will calm my heart. It will give me strength these last four weeks to exist. Easter is about love that heals. Love that grows. Love that can't be explained easily, only fully experienced through devastation and loss. Love is all that's left of yourself when you are losing/have lost a child. Clarity is non existent. Strength is gone. The "right" attitude comes and goes. Peace is often elusive. Comfort. Well, there's just no such thing. Love. Love is all that's left.
And so, my sweet Everett, as your heavenday approaches, I want you to know love. Please feel my tears washing you in my love. Please feel this anxiety as my heart quaking from love for you. Please, my sweet Everett, know that on your birthday when you enter heaven, that it is love shining all around you. That it is love that brought you onto earth, love that kept you in the womb, and Love that carries you into heaven. Love. The Easter kind of love.
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