Lux et umbra vicissum…

light and shadow by turn…

Lux et umbra vicissum… header image 2

An odd emptiness

October 30th, 2003 · No Comments

How are you supposed to react when you find out that someone you know only slightly has had a child die? I received a phone call today that a lady from my Bible study had to rush her 1 yr. old to the ER the other day, and then the child died. It was bacterial meningitis. The child came down with the symptoms one day and was dead the next.

I don’t know the woman well. I barely know her by sight, truth be told. But her child’s death somehow puts my own children in danger. I suddenly want to say, “We’re now going to live in a bubble. We’re going nowhere and doing nothing other than spending quality time together being paranoid.” That, of course, would be ridiculous.

The other reaction I’ve noticed is a confusion, and I’m not even completely sure what I’m confused about. I guess it’s just the whole question of why things happen like they do. And death in general… it’s confusing. One minute someone is alive and seems to be doing fine, and then suddenly they’re not. Another woman in our area, someone from a MOPS (Mothers of Pre-schoolers) gruop in a different church, just recently backed over her 3 year old with her SUV. It wasn’t her fault. The child was supposed to be inside and no one had noticed him come out of the house. She, of course, couldn’t see him. So how does this affect me? Well, practically speaking, it doesn’t. But somehow… I just don’t understand. It makes me feel… empty… depressed, somehow.

Flashback… I worked at a special needs camp for part of a summer. I ended up leaving early because I felt like I couldn’t handle it anymore. I felt like a wimp when I left and cried for the whole drive home, only to find out later that I had mono and strep. That at least made me feel better about leaving. Anyway, before the campers arrived we had a week with just the staff so we could get to know each other and the grounds. The first evening there, I was seated across the dinner table from a blind gentleman who was probably in his 50s or so. During the meal, he wasn’t talking a whole lot, though he did talk a little bit and seemed slightly gruff. Partway through the meal he excused himself and made his way to the restroom. He hadn’t come back for a little bit, so one of the other male counselors went to check on him. He was dead. He died of a heart attack in the restroom. He went in thinking he had indigestion, apparently.

How do these people’s deaths affect me and my life? I don’t know them that well. My daily schedule and practices aren’t changed by their not being around anymore. But I still feel… dark. Their deaths still bother me, more than I somehow think they should. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to explain or adequately verbalize how I feel. I just don’t understand it myself.

Tags: Drivel