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Born four months prematurely, our precious son, Charlie, had overcome many obstacles even before he was diagnosed at age 3 with hepatoblastoma, a rare liver cancer. Charlie died on October 7th, 2002, after suffering severe blood loss during surgery. We continue to celebrate his life and await our reunion with him, in God's time.
Journal
Monday, March 30, 2009 11:01 AM CDT
An update, in March?! The annual October updating-of-the-webpage is a long way off, but I decided to revive Charlie's dormant page to post an article I wrote for our church newsletter. I'm senior warden this year, a job that sounds like it should come with a big bunch of keys and a billy club, but what it really means is that I have an opportunity every month to write about what's on my mind, spiritually. As I was writing my latest article, I realized that, although I have told this remarkable story to many people, I have never shared it on Charlie's page, until now! So here's my article, and inside it is the story:
At our Lenten retreat, Rev. Mary Ellen Ashcroft passed around a bowl of stones from the North Shore and invited us each to take one. My rock was a homely pinkish blob, the shape and color of a human heart. Turning it over, I saw a jagged cleft on the other side; this was a deeply broken heart. Mary Ellen asked us to think of our stones as a space cleared in our hearts and minds, and invited us to name them as a way of holding on to this new space. The gouge in my heart-shaped rock reminded me of a Hasidic tale told by Parker Palmer in "The Politics of the Broken-Hearted," from the essay collection Deepening the American Dream: "A disciple asks the rebbe, 'Why does the Torah tell us to "place these words upon your hearts"? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?' The rebbe answers, 'It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in" (133).
At our first meeting of the new vestry on February 28th, we continued our practice of dwelling in Scripture, reflecting together on Philippians 2:1-11 and allowing God's Word to enter more deeply into our hearts. I have always read this passage as a primer on how to get along with others in Christian community, but what stood out to me this time was Paul's encouragement to be of the same mind as Christ Jesus, who "emptied himself" in obedience to God. That's a tall order, a greater challenge than merely conceding a point in a debate about the budget or what color to paint the sanctuary. Even if we're willing to yield to someone else's opinion, it's easy to remain full of ourselves, self-reliant and impervious to the real influence of others.
Sometimes the words sink in slowly, even through the deepest wounds. After our son died of cancer six years ago, a coordinator in the hospital's bereavement program offered to match me with a parent who had gone through the loss of a child and had re-emerged, more or less intact. It was a noble idea, one that I could support in theory. I had, in fact, been volunteering for years at Children's with the same coordinator, supporting parents whose babies were struggling in the neonatal intensive care unit. But it was one thing to breeze into the NICU again as the veteran with all the answers, ready to soothe the newest frantic parent, and it was quite another to be on the receiving end of such care.
I made conditions. I would agree to a match if she could find me a mother whose child had died under similar circumstances, who had battled a dread disease with every expectation of a cure -- a good prognosis gone suddenly wrong. And it had to be someone with a sense of humor. Undaunted, my coordinator rose to the challenge. A letter arrived, informing me that a suitable match had been found and that we would be partnered by telephone for one year. My match, Ingrid, would make the first contact that week, at a time I had indicated would be convenient. It was a tidy, clinical arrangement.
I dreaded getting that first phone call. There was no room in my life or my heart for new people, no energy for new friendships. I could barely return calls from the friends I already had. How could a manufactured relationship help me cope with a loss that could never be restored -- not in this world, and maybe not ever? The only way I could cope with the doubt that was beginning to cripple my faith was to keep it tamped down, and my only hope of keeping my ragged emotions together was to reveal them to a select few.
When the phone rang and I saw Ingrid's name on caller ID, my avoidance impulse reared up; I would let it go to voice mail and call back when I felt more sociable. But on the last ring, a different impulse swept over me. I grabbed the phone and stammered through the initial pleasantries. Then Ingrid asked me to tell her Charlie's story, and she listened while I took her through every twist and turn of his complicated plot. She clearly met my humor requirement, despite having lived through moments when she couldn't imagine laughing again. I asked Ingrid to tell me about her child. His name was Malcolm, she said, and as she began to tell me about him, the wheels started churning in my brain, until a recognition clicked into place and an electric jolt shot through my spine. "Ingrid!" I interrupted, "I just realized something -- Charlie is buried right next to Malcolm!" Of all the cemetery plots in the Twin Cities, we had somehow chosen the one next to her son.
I told Ingrid about how Paul and I had toured the cemetery two days after Charlie's death, numbly going about the absurd task of finding a "good" place to bury our child. We had nearly exhausted Roselawn's 160 acres when we came to a towering maple tree, ablaze with orange, which drew us to a section of family plots, and a headstone engraved with a cartoon from Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince. The dates told us the boy was seven when he died, the same age as the big brother Charlie had left behind. Despite all that was wrong with our situation, something about this spot had felt right. Stunned, Ingrid recalled visiting Malcolm's grave and seeing the fresh, plot next to his. She could see from the small rectangle of cut-out sod that it was a child's grave, and her heart broke all over again for a family she didn't even know. As we put the pieces together, we saw that we already shared a deep connection, and we laughed when we realized that one day the two of us would be buried next to each other. The hospital had matched us for the duration of one year, but we had already been matched for eternity.
When I shared this story with family and friends, many declared it a miraculous sign that God was in control, even in the midst of tragedy. To me, it was enough that God was simply there, in this unlikely connection between two broken-hearted strangers. What struck me then was that there could be no miracle without Ingrid's willingness to reach out to a stranger and talk about the hardest experience of her life. What strikes me now as I reflect on Paul's words to the Philippians is that the miracle relied, too, on my rare willingness to be "emptied out" so that unfathomable grace could enter in.
There are two ways that a heart can break, Parker Palmer writes in "The Politics of the Broken-Hearted." It can shatter into a thousand shards, a wound that will never heal. Or, like a small, clenched fist, it can break wide open. My prayer for the people of St. Matthew's is that we will, like Jesus, empty ourselves so that we can enter into relationships that are deep and authentic, and know God in the connections between us.
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