A Child Dies

I am at work. No patients yet. The first one cancelled. I look at my watch. It's another 1 and 1/2 hours before I can be distracted from my thoughts. Another 1 1/2 hours before I can focus on helping someone, rather than focusing on the bottomless sadness I feel.

A child died last week. His funeral was yesterday.

He was a beautiful boy, full of life, adventure, kindness and curiosity.

I feel so numb. I cannot imagine what his loving parents are feeling.

How can you explain the death of a child? The priest at the funeral yesterday said that there is nothing that can prepare you for a moment like this -- for the loss of a child. The priest went on to say that there are no books, no courses, no programs, no schools, and no T.V. shows -- nothing, that can prepare you for something like this.

I think that I must be really weird because there are times when I rehearse in my mind each member of my close family dying in order to "prepare" for potential moments like those. My husband, or my oldest daughter or my youngest daughter. Weird huh?

You know why I do that? Because I don't believe I would ever be strong enough to cope with that kind of loss. I practice just in case, so I can be able to walk and be functional instead of being curled up in a foetal position on the floor for months -- if anything like that ever happened. I don't go through this rehearsal very often. I prefer feeling happy.

I know that people cope with loss all of the time, and many do really well. At times like this I wish I were a Buddhist where I could live the philosophy of non-attachment. At other times I wish I were a practising Christian where I would believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that life after death meant the reunion of people you have loved in life surrounded by the love of Christ.

I'm in a no man's land of belief and grief. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, it just changes form. From life to death, this incredible energy within each and every one of us is liberated into the entirety of existence. That is what I believe happens upon death. It makes me feel better when I believe that the purpose of this liberation is to do more good in the world.

I envy those with solid beliefs in a particular religion who use those religious teaching to become anchored to something when life just ain't good. These people pray anyway, Martina McBride sings.

I am not anchored. I'm just floating in and out of oblivion, breathing in the air that supports my lungs, and breathing out heartache that gets trapped in my cells.

I don't dare ask "Why?". What is the point of asking this one word question? There will never be an answer that will suffice. Not in a billion years. Maybe when I'm on the other side, beyond death, I'll be able to say: "Now I understand". But I don't believe there will ever be an "I" on the other side. Not even a "We". There'll be something, but not anything that I could comprehend in my human mind right now.

Let's face it. I just don't like how it works sometimes. People who appear to ride the bumps well are people who are essentially non-resistive people. They are people who -- that no matter the circumstance -- say to the universe in thought and action: "Yes, thank you." Or at the very least "Okay, if this is something I must accept, I will accept this".

As far back as I remember, I have never been a non-resister. Every bump along the way for me has been a hard crash. "No, I don't like this". "No, there's got to be a better outcome".

It has been a painful life journey to be a resister. I wonder if it's a genetic thing or a learned thing. Both my sister and brother are essentially non-resisters. We grew up in the same family, learned the same values, and were exposed to the same life perspective from our parents. It's got to be a genetic thing.

This theory isn't too enticing since genetics are something I can't change. But I can always change my beliefs about something.

My beliefs run deep.

I've seen many children die while I worked as a nurse in critical care areas. As a naturopath, I heard patients relay their stories to me, of their children who had died. I suppose I've never really been strongly attached to a child who has died before. However, this boy was someone I had known for years before he passed on. He left a permanent mark on my heart.

My beliefs run deep. I think that's where I get stuck.

Children should outlive their parents. Children should be allowed to grow up to adulthood. Children should not die. Parents should not have to bear this burden of grief.

Lots of shoulds and should nots cry out in the face of a constantly changing world, where beliefs get swept up in the windstorm of a silence that is deafening.

I have no answers. My questions have dwindled down to one. Dear God, how can I find peace? or is the question, where do I find peace? Is it a place or a process?

I'm still awaiting an answer to that question. If time is the answer, I am still waiting.