A week ago Saturday, Kim – who is the mother of my daughter's best friend called. Her sister who was diagnosed with Leukemia over the summer was succumbing to the illness and had been sent home to pass. Through her tears she asked me to help with her daughter's birthday party while she was out paying for her baby sister's burial plot. My heart broke for their family.
A day later on Sunday after a really great day; church, lunch with friends, seeing our friend and now pastor being ordained and installed we went home to wind down. After we had been home for about an hour, my daughter called to me from upstairs. Her voice was quivering and we immediately knew something wasn't right. When we got to her and asked what was wrong, through tears and terror she somehow managed to tell us that her friend Ken had killed himself earlier that day. Through shock, horror and a deep sadness I clung to my daughter and mourned for his family. My heart broke for my daughter. My heart broke for Ken and my heart broke for his family.
As I spent the next several hours consoling my child and myself I wondered how this could have happened. How could a young man, so full of life and so full of promise have found himself in such a place of despair? How could the son of a minister, a student on an ROTC Scholarship at Auburn who had everything on earth to live for, someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s friend and someone who by all accounts made everyone else smile…. How could that someone take his own life? How would his poor mother ever manage to wake up and go on knowing that her oldest son couldn't? How would his father hold on to his faith while he was missing his son? How would his brother (another good friend of my daughter) get up every day and carry on without his big brother, his hero, his friend? And how was I to console my own child who was suffering her second tragic loss in her very young life when I could hardly console myself?
Wednesday my daughter's best friends Aunt passed away and my daughter spent five hours that night at a funeral home because her best friend wanted her there. In two days we had two visitations and two funerals on our calendar. Saturday we attended Ken’s funeral. This was the second funeral for a child we’ve attended in just over two years. One child's funeral in a lifetime is almost inconceivable… I am not quite sure how I managed two.
I was amazed that Ken's father preached his own son's funeral. He didn't seem bitter, angry or confused but was clearly holding on desperately to his faith while mourning the loss of his oldest son. His mother hugged me tightly but still managed to put a smile on her tear stained face when she told me it was nice to see me. I sat through the service wondering how those poor people would go back to a house where their son had taken his own life. How they would set a table, minus a place setting. How the upcoming holiday season would be like none other while there was one less person to shop for and one less smiling face opening gifts on Christmas morning. While I cried through a two and a half hour service I recognized that they have a strength I will never possess.
Anyone who knows me knows that I firmly believe there is a lesson in everything. I don't know what my lesson is but I do know that a week later I still physically ache for this family, for my daughter and her friends. I do know that while a young mother of two lay dying at home wishing for just one more day with her loved ones, a young man was on the other side of town wishing that he were dead for reasons that anyone over the age of 30 would have known were just not that serious. I do know that my daughter has experienced loss like I never had to at her age and I wish more than anything in the world I could kept her from that.
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