A Shared Experience
Oli arrived at the hospital with a couple of his youth group leaders. I hugged him so closely. Our first-born son. A product of our love. And now here he was, a witness to something so traumatic and tragic. I couldn’t love him more at that moment. We cried tears of utter despair together. In a very different way, she was the love of his life too. What could have been going through his mind then? How could he ever make sense of this?
Sometime later, Pete and Alison arrived. It was a dreaded moment. “They couldn’t revive her” I feebly muttered as I looked them in the eye. “She’s gone.” Surely those words are a parent’s worst nightmare. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for them to hear the news. We embraced, clutching each other, almost as though we were trying to prevent our own lives from departing.
Is that why people feel compelled to hug in times of such despair? To hold the soul in? Whatever the case, darkness was feasting on our entire family like a parasite, threatening never to spit us out of its evil mouth. It seemed to me then that this was something we’d never recover from. Not fully. How could we? We would never – never – be the same. Weakness and hopelessness swamped me.
In that darkness though, there were a few small flickering lights. Oli being there was one of them. He represented the four children I’d now have to raise without Suse. I loved them. But I would have to love them even more now. And though I wish he hadn’t experienced it, the fact we shared this experience together makes me feel less alone. He alone understands the horror of that night. The second flickering light was the presence of family and friends. I felt very lonely, already, but I didn’t feel alone. The third flickering light was the knowledge of Christ’s resurrection. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 was the first verse to come to mind. Suse had died. But she was safe in her saviour’s arms. The promises of God in Christ were carrying me in the darkness. And they would carry me still. Knowledge of Christ’s destruction of death didn’t fix the pain. But it provided a pillar to hold up my anguishing soul.
At some point, my sister and then Susie’s brother turned up. And the same thing happened again. Wailing and despair. We were all broken. The great love Suse had sewn into all of us had been ripped out of us, and the violence of that act of separation had done great damage to us.
