Mourning Has Broken by Erin Davis

Author:Erin Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2019-01-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Soul Survivors

Phil and Colin, summer 2017

Brooke Shirakawa

IN THAT DARK, BLURRY HOUR AFTER WE LEARNED of our daughter’s death some three thousand kilometres away, I encountered the first of many well-meaning people trying to console me with their own faith and beliefs. As Rob and I stumbled back through the hotel hallway in the pre-dawn hours, we noticed that a staff member was just about to enter our room to tidy it.

We surprised her with our return, as she had been told we’d be occupied with the broadcast until 9 a.m.; part of our arrangement with the hotel was that the radio station team would have our rooms tidied extra early, so that we could rest during the day without interruptions. We told her there had been a change of plans, and that we would be leaving later in the day: our daughter had just died at home, and we were going to fly back to be with her husband and baby son.

“Oh my,” she said, shaking her head. “God is great, God is great.”

I responded in a way that, for me, was uncharacteristically unfiltered (and definitely not “on my best”), but that I simply couldn’t hold in. I said evenly and in a voice thick with pain, “Well, I can’t agree with you right now.” Rob and I passed her to enter our room and then closed the door to hold each other, cry and begin to make those horrible calls to our loved ones. God is great, she said?

In a very short time, I put the filter back on and learned to nod and be thankful for whatever kind words people said or sent, and to be mindful that it is, truly, “the thought that counts.” I know that when something as senseless as the death of a seemingly healthy person occurs—especially when it upsets the natural order of parents preceding their children to the grave—it can leave a person without the right words.

That is perfectly okay. It is all right not to have the words. And what could I expect, having blindsided this nice lady who was just doing her job in the quiet pre-dawn hours? It’s not as if she had time to come up with a poem.

Most people, if they are fortunate, will never begin to fathom the pain that accompanies a loss like this. That’s why the appropriate thing to say is often elusive, if not impossible. Even my own father, widowed just three years earlier, was only able to express himself to us in an email later that day.

It is with boundless sorrow that I’m writing this note to you and Rob in the loss of your only child, on my behalf, my sister Marion and brother Andy and express our sincere shock and sadness that such an extreme event could even happen in this day and age to those just out of teenage years!!

Just heard a wonderful and appropriate piece of music that brought on the cheek water, and goes thusly: “When at last my life on earth is through, I will spend eternity with you” .

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