Where did joy go?
Muffle your laughter; let your tears fall silently.
Let silence fill the world even if just for a moment.
This is not a time for joy,
This is a time to be struck by the miracle of living and despair at the cruelty of Death.
My dear friend’s daughter is just like mother: she has much grace and strength. I can only trust that she and her husband have sufficient of both to bear this eviscerating blow: the death of their beloved Emily Rose. Just 3 months and already showing she had inherited much those same traits through her mother and her grandmother, my friend.
Not for them the joy of their wee bairn flourishing within the circle of their love. For them, the harrowing pain of watching Emily’s peers growing and thriving on the love of their families. What, were there nine of them lined up on the couch? Most of them there with parents to farewell that beautiful baby who was yet to become a child. Their combined grief was harrowing.
I cannot imagine that this overwhelming pain they are feeling is in anyway comparable to what I have experienced, my loses pale into insignificance: they are a young couple without their first child, completely in love and loving.
I have no more words . . . please don’t comfort with talk of your god needing another angel . . . no god needed that baby more than her parents . . . I don’t believe in that god. It makes no sense: it is not right.
From Emily Rose’s service, the words of Michael Leunig’s poem, When the Heart . . .
When the heart
Is cut or cracked or broken,
Do not clutch it;
Let the wound lie open.
Let the wind
From the good old sea blow in
To bathe the wound with salt,
And let it sting.
Let a stray dog lick it,
Let a bird lean in the hole and sing
A simple song like a tiny bell,
And let it ring.
And yes, I went straight from that sad, sad funeral to my son’s to cuddle my granddaughters, to hold that family tight and feel blessed.
late start studio 