It was the joy that got me. The sheer how-dare-you of it all. Before I get to that, I have to tell you this.
Yesterday we lost another child in our community. A seventh grader. A beloved child, brother, classmate, friend. One minute running around with friends and then, just hours later, gone.
And yesterday I could not cry. I could send text messages and I could check in on my kids and I could order takeout for the friends closer to the center of this pain. I could say the words. Heartbroken. Nightmare. Unbelievable. And of course, the words we all say: there are no words. Deep cries out to deep. We lose a child and we feel the connectedness of us all. We say no, we cry how long, we look somewhere for help.
Where does my help come from?
Sometimes I imagine a life for myself that does not include my Christian faith. My friend Ashley says she doesn’t feel like she has the autonomy to imagine that and it always surprises me to hear her say it. I feel like I’m only one or two steps away from burning the whole thing down. It might seem paradoxical but for some reason, giving myself the permission to step into a space without faith helps me land in a more honest place. I have always been a doubter. Almost hilariously, the more assured I am of being held and loved by God, the more freedom I feel to say that I now give myself permission to process life without the lens of Christianity. What would I say to someone if I didn’t have this theological framework? I reflexively respond to tragedies with Christian language; there is some level of comforting familiarity in those words. But does the language hold up in a world where kids die? In a world where systems oppress? Where trauma from childhood shows up years later to destroy marriages? Where I have to talk to my children about school shootings? Is there language for this?
I talk to my friends who have walked into the rooms where a mother has lost her child. I hear their descriptions of these experiences. I hear them say there are no words for this pain, for the shattering, for the primal undoing of a mother who has lost her child. It is an encounter with death, with hell itself and there is not one single phrase or platitude or conversation that can make it right. There is only with-ness. There is only choosing to go toward rather than leave alone.
Physiologically, the language center of our brains goes offline during emergencies. If you encounter a bear in the woods, you do not at that moment need the ability to solve the NYT Connections puzzle. You need chemicals that enable you to make quick decisions to give you the best chance of survival. When you slam on your brakes and dodge a car accident, you feel the hot rush of adrenaline and cortisol. This is the same part of your brain that activates during trauma as your body knows that its energy is needed for basic survival, not complex logical thinking.
It is not lost on me that, of all things, a vocabulary parade was on the agenda for my daughter this morning. She agonized over her word choice, landed on one that felt doable for her shy observer sideline self, and this morning I helped her get dressed up as a royal queen in a crown and high heels. I let her put on my lip gloss in the car. Her stomach was hurting. “I can’t tell if I’m nervous or excited,” she said. We could hear the music before we even got to the sidewalk. “Oh, I've been runnin' through this strange life, Chasin' all them green lights, something something sunshine.” We rounded the corner to a full-on Friday morning vocabulary parade dance party. The teachers and kids were dressed up in costumes depicting the word they chose. There was dancing, singing and everyone’s faces made it clear that this party was for everyone and it was better now that you’re here. Winsome, contagious, communal, electric joy.
And that was when the tears started for me. Because how dare we? How dare we dance in a world where children die?
And yet we do. We have to. The deep that calls to deep says yes. We collectively long for a world where children dance with abandon, where the adults that love them hold out their arms and say I will help keep you safe and I am so glad you are here and I will do my best to take care of you. We are all in it together. The life and the death, the joy and the pain, the protection and the abandon. The dance parties and the funerals.
And it is here that I am once again reminded that the Christian faith is built on a theology of with-ness. Of God as a person. Of God in wilderness and God who cried and God who needed time alone and God who celebrated and had dinner with his friends and ate breakfast on the beach. I’m not here to give answers, I’m here to remind you that you aren’t alone. It’s the one thing that God continues to give to me.
You do a very good job of helping to heal things you did not break.
I couldn’t feel this more in my soul. What a perfectly written, raw, honest way you expressed this for all of us feeling this so deeply. Thank you💗🙏