A Chronicle of Grief by Mel Lawrenz

Author:Mel Lawrenz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Grief;grieve;stages of grief;loss;losing a loved one;loss of a loved one;losing a child;loss of a child;child death;trauma;traumatic loss;unexpected death;complicated grief;bereavement;hope in grief;sudden death of a child;memoir;memoir of grief;memoir of loss;memoir death of a child;Christian memoir;Christian memoir of grief;Christian grief;Christian grieving
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2020-05-06T09:30:53+00:00

11

RADIANCE

You have to turn the pages of the calendar. Whether you walk or plod or slide from one week to the next, one month relentlessly turns over into the next and you come eventually to the birthday of the one you lost.

Eva was born two days after Ingrid’s birthday. I had taken Ingrid out for a nice lunch on her birthday. Naturally, we sat there talking about how our lives would be changing very soon. My mind bounced around, fueled by a steady stream of adrenaline, which was both fun and exhausting. We were electrified. Was the house ready? Did we miss anything in our plan to get to the hospital since it wasn’t exactly nearby? Planning didn’t matter much since, on the important day, I walked out of the house without the suitcase and took the wrong exit on the freeway.

At lunch Ingrid was feeling kind of queasy. Would our firstborn come on that day? On Ingrid’s own birthday?

Just two days later, January 16. That was The Day. The most wonderful event of our lives. Pure joy. Cascading love. Deep gratitude. Trepidation with expectation. Two days later I helped Ingrid into the passenger seat of our Honda Civic outside the hospital, and then took that little baby from the nurse and strapped her in the baby seat. As we drove away from the hospital a great weight fell on my shoulders. Now we are responsible—more than we had ever been before in our lives. Would we know what to do now?

At Eva’s one-year birthday we had a truly great day. A crazy-goofy-giddy day with more than a dozen friends and family in the house with January howling outside. Excited talk. Pointy hats all around. Aromatic smells of lunch wafting through the house. And in the middle of it all a bald little baby tucked into her high chair, in front of her a small red-velvet cake with butter frosting with a single candle. She blinked and looked around—at the candle, at the cake, at the people. She was alternately delighted and bewildered when a wave of laughter came from a group joking in the next room. Then came the lighting of that one candle. Wide baby eyes. With permission to maul the cake, she slowly grabbed fistfuls of the cake and pushed large pieces into her little mouth, eyes wider yet, amazed by the feel of butter frosting between her fingers as she squeezed them into a fist. The look on her face said, “Mom—you’re okay with this? I can really do this?”

Occasionally now, someone will say, because they have heard compelling things about Eva, “I wish I had known her.” I always choke up. It honors her and us. And I think, I do indeed wish there could have been more time for that to happen. Anyone would have loved to have known Eva or call her a friend.

I could write a book about this kid, this beautiful young woman, and how she affected others. One day after her death one of Eva’s peers said, “She was the most radiant person I ever knew.

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