Austin's Blog

I told a friend recently that I just never imagined I would outlive either of my children. I never even considered it. As a Christian, you think often about your own death. The faith prepares you for it. Yet, I never consciously thought what it would mean to lose my own son. Nothing could prepare you for it. Mark Doty poignantly asks, “How could I ever prepare for an absence the size of you?” The reason why child loss feels different is the order is off. It is against the natural order. Our children ought to bury us—not the other way around. God numbers our days but you don’t expect the days of your children to be fewer than your own. This is why it is deeply saddening. Something precious and full of earthly potential has been extinguished. Frederick Buechner writes, “Celebrate the life by all means, but face up to the death of that life. Weep all the tears you have in you to weep, because whatever may happen next, if anything does, this has happened. Something precious and irreplaceable has come to an end and something in you has come to an end with it.”

Another aspect of the sorrow is the fact that it isn’t just my child who has gone into the grave. “Small coffins are placed in the ground, but more than the body is buried.” Each day, a new realization of what is lost comes to fruition. Cameron Cole notes, “For people who have lost small children, so much of their grief involves losing the joys and journeys of the different phases of childhood. They grieve missed birthdays, a nonexistent first day of kindergarten, a graduation ceremony that never comes. They painfully wonder how their child’s personality and appearance may have evolved over time. The seasons of enjoying that child are lost.” Hopes, dreams, plans, expectations, opportunities, experiences, milestones, and so much more are turned into ashes. You don’t just grieve over what happened. You grieve over what should have happened but never got to be. Children don’t just belong to your past; they belong to your future. Or, at least, they’re supposed to.

This is, indeed, the greatest tragedy of our lives. I agree with Tim Challies who says, “My life has known no moment harder than this. My heart has known no sorrow deeper than this. Nothing could be more final, nothing more sobering, nothing more shattering than watching my son’s casket be lowered, inch by inch, foot by foot, until at last it comes to rest at the bottom of a grave. His grave … A piece of me is being buried. A piece of my heart. A piece of my soul. A piece of my very self.” He was of and from me. He was a part of me and when he went, a part of me left with him. It is appropriate then to grieve over Gabriel. If he was worth loving, he is certainly worth grieving. The intensity of it exists because we truly and really love him. Grief is simply love turned upside down and shaken. Grief is totally appropriate. I keep reminding myself of the great privilege and blessing it was to know Gabriel those 366 days. He truly was our miracle baby. We never thought in our wildest dreams we could conceive and there that little wonder showed up. It is hard not to long for and wish for more time yet those moments, those days, that year was undeserved, unmerited, and likely will be unmatched until eternity. We have tasted all these sorrows and more. Yet, we rejoice over this past year. I will take joy over my precious son and his little life. I will grieve what has been lost. Both are fitting.