My mother Nina Naomi, born November 6, 1922-died May 25, 2005
My son, born January 28, 1972-died July 17, 2005
His daughter, born July 29, 2005
His nephew and our younger grandson, born January 28, 2005
Everyone has a hardest year. Ours was 2005. Our house was filled with love and grief so intertwined that swirling molecules of one collided with molecules of the other. My mother was in a nursing home dying of cancer and her first born grandson could not visit her because he was dying of his own cancer. She was 82 and he was 33. My daughter had a 4-year old son and a baby born January 28 (today as I write this) the day her brother turned thirty-three. We have a photo of them together, our son, a tall man with soft light brown hair worn long in front--now bald from chemotherapy--and his nephew with the downy scalp, held high, matching bald head for bald head. Our son looks quizzical.
Twelve days after our son's death, his daughter was born, a healthy amazing child with straight-up punk-style strawberry blonde hair.
I still remember being in the hallway when a nurse asked me, is the new mother your daughter? No, she's my daughter-in-law I said. She made the connection and looked stricken for me. "Oh, I'm so sorry," touching my arm.
But even then, just twelve days after our son's death, his daughter closed the circle. Our grief was cushioned by our love: for him, for her, for her mother. Our daughter-in-law was sleep-walking. She went from nursing a husband to nursing a baby; flush with all her new-mother hormones, yet asking God "why?"
I got through the day of the funeral holding the precious baby who had been born just six months before. Our daughter handed him to me as we came home from the church, knowing who I needed to stay upright as friends came by. I focused on his silky soft head (99th percentile, his father bragged). By six months this baby boy was already saving a life.
From the moment of her birth our son's daughter filled the family with joy and admiration. She is a smart, willowy college junior. As God's gift to her and to us, she has never shared our grief. She has her own knowledge of loss, I believe, but not with the depth of ours. When she holds out her arms for an embrace, no person is luckier than I.
I am writing this small remembrance on January 28, the birthday of my son and my younger grandson. Now, 21 years after the death of my son, it is my grandson who I awake thinking of. His happy birthday, away from home in Scotland at St. Andrew's University, living his best life and sharing it during long phone calls, with us.
In the midst of this remembrance of love and sadness, I get a call from our granddaughter. It is Daddy's birthday, she says to me, and I am thinking of you. Who raised such a girl I wonder. How can she know I need her voice today?
We are home with the flu and she drives partway up our icy drive, then walks the rest of the way carrying a bag of cough medicine and spicy Peruvian chicken. She leaves it all on the back stoop and taps on the window and waves. We are snowed in and feverish but now we have enough chicken, rice, beans and Robitussin to last till weekend. There are yucca chips in the bag too.
The hardest year is long over. We survived it. We do, don't we? Our daughter-in-law stayed a widow for ten years, until that no longer seemed right, and then married the man our granddaughter calls Dad. But Daddy is still our son, a man who has filled her with his tenderness of spirit and so many other qualities. More than any other feeling, I feel lucky and blessed. I feel hope in the younger generations. I feel God's gifts in my marriage, in the snow softly falling again, in the candlelight glowing by my computer.
In Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) said, "I can't go on. I'll go on." This is supposed to reflect the essence of human persistence despite despair, and it does. But to Christians, surely a statement of God at our side.
Thank you for reading. Nina Naomi
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