You don’t just lose someone once

 You don’t just lose someone once.

You lose them when you close your eyes each night.

And as you open them each morning.

You lose them throughout the day.

An unused coffee cup.

An empty chair.

A pair of boots no longer there.

You lose them as the sun sets.

And darkness closes in.

 

You lose them as you wonder why.

Staring at a star lit sky.

You lose them on the big days.

Anniversaries.

Birthdays.

Graduations.

Holidays.

Weddings.

And the regular days too.

You lose them in the ordinary.

Paperwork.

Household chores.

Routines taken for granted.

You lose them in the familiar.

A song they used to sing.

The scent of their cologne.

A slice of their favourite pie.

You lose them in conversations you will never have.

And all the words unsaid.

You lose them in all the places they’ve been.

And all the places they longed to go.

You lose them in what could have been.

And all the dreams you shared.

You lose them as you pick up the broken pieces.

And begin your life anew.

You lose them when you realize.

This is your new reality.

They are never coming back.

No matter how much 

You miss them or

Need them.

No matter how hard you pray.

They are gone.

And you must go on.

Alone.

You lose them as the seasons change.

The snow blows.

The flowers blossom.

The grass grows.

The leaves fall.

You lose them again and again.

Day after day.

Month after month.

Year after year.

Time marches on, carrying them further and further way.

You lose them as your hair whitens and your body bends with age.

Your memory fades.

And the details begin to blur.

Their face stares back at you from a faded photograph.

Someone you used to know.

You think you might have loved them once.

Long ago.

Back then.

When you were whole.

You don’t just lose someone once.

You lose them every day.

Over and over again.

For the rest of your life. 

~ Donna Ashworth

Lament for a Son

 In Lament for a Son[1] Nicholas Wolterstorff writes not as a scholar but as a loving father grieving the loss of his son. The book is in one sense a narrative account of events--from the numbing telephone call on a sunny Sunday afternoon that tells of 25-year-old Eric's death in a mountain-climbing accident, to a graveside visit a year later. Lament for a Son gives expression to a grief that is at once unique and universal--a grief for an individual, irreplaceable person.

Quotable Quotes

“Often, I am asked whether the grief remains as intense as when I wrote. The answer is, No. The wound is no longer raw. But it has not disappeared. That is as it should be. If he was worth loving, he is worth grieving over. Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved. That worth abides.”

“It’s the neverness that is so painful. Never again to be here with us—never to sit with us at table, never to travel with us, never to laugh with us, never to cry with us, never to embrace us.”

“IT’S SO WRONG, SO profoundly wrong, for a child to die before its parents. It’s hard enough to bury our parents. But that we expect. Our parents belong to our past, our children belong to our future. We do not visualize our future without them. How can I bury my son, my future, one of the next in line? He was meant to bury me!”

“His death is things to do not done—never to be done.”

“THERE’S A HOLE in the world now. In the place where he was, there’s now just nothing. A center, like no other, of memory and hope and knowledge and affection which once inhabited this earth is gone. Only a gap remains. A perspective on this world unique in this world which once moved about within this world has been rubbed out. Only a void is left . . .  A person, an irreplaceable person, is gone. Never again will anyone apprehend the world quite the way he did. Never again will anyone inhabit the world the way he did. Questions I have can never now get answers. The world is emptier. My son is gone. Only a hole remains, a void, a gap, never to be filled.”

“I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and resurrecter of Jesus Christ. I also believe that my son’s life was cut off in its prime. I cannot fit these pieces together. I am at a loss. I have read the theodicies produced to justify the ways of God to man. I find them unconvincing. To the most agonized question I have ever asked I do not know the answer. I do not know why God would watch him fall. I do not know why God would watch me wounded. I cannot even guess.”

“WITH THESE HANDS I lifted him from his cradle—tiny then, soft, warm, and squirming with life. Now at the end with these same hands I touched him in his coffin.”

“And at the end, that we now must learn to live as faithfully and authentically with Eric gone as we had tried to do with Eric present.”

“I will indeed remind myself that there’s more to life than pain. I will accept joy. But I will not look away from Eric dead. Its demonic awfulness I will not ignore. I owe that—to him and to God.”

“I cannot fit it together at all. I can only, with Job, endure. I do not know why God did not prevent Eric’s death. To live without the answer is precarious. It’s hard to keep one’s footing.”

“Will the family all be home for Christmas?” . . . “What are your children doing now?” . . .  “How many children do you have?”

“HIS YOUNGER brothers had begun to ask him for advice. To Claire and me he had become an equal, no longer a child to be cared for. Now he’s gone, and the family has to restructure itself. We don’t just each have a gap inside us but together a gap among us. We have to live differently with each other. We have to live around the gap. Pull one out, and everything changes.”

“The mourners are those who have caught a glimpse of God’s new day, who ache with all their being for that day’s coming, and who break out into tears when confronted with its absence.”

“Lament is part of life.”

 

---

[1] Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Lament for a Son. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.