Remembering

This past weekend our family attended a memorial event hosted by Children’s Hospital.  It was a nice enough event – lovely music, touching poems, a dove release – 12 doves, one for each month of the year that we remember and miss the children we have “lost.”  There was a slide show with photos of the children being remembered that day…too many children, especially considering that this event was for the patients of just one hospital. 

Yes, a nice event, and I feel that the organizers did a fine job of putting it together.  But such events do little to take away even a tiny bit of grief.  There is no real comfort given, outside of the insistence that these children will not be forgotten.  True comfort for me can only come through Scripture, and naturally an event of this sort lacked a Biblical foundation. 

I didn’t expect it to be more than it was, really, (actually it was in several ways better than I expected) and afterward I contemplated why I wanted to be there in the first place, why I was willing to make the three hour car trip, each way, to take part in an event I didn’t expect to be overly helpful. I came to the conclusion that I am desperate for acknowledgements that Anna lived and that she was loved.  I look for reasons to take time to simply reflect on her life, to remember, to grieve. 

Yes, she is always on my mind and the grieving is continuous; Anna comes up in conversation often in our house, and on a regular basis with friends and family members.  But as time passes, more and more often we remember her and speak of her in the hurriedness of life going on.  It is natural, I suppose, that longer conversations and intense grieving sessions become more rare as time goes on, and even my private moments of giving into the grief are happening less often.  I think that is, for the most part, a good thing.  Yet, there can be great satisfaction (that isn’t quite the right word) in having Anna’s photo shown as part of a slide show of remembrance, of being able to speak and hear her name once again among people who understand, of having an opportunity to focus on Anna, to be reminded of all the ways our lives have been blessed through her, to remember, to know that though she is no longer on this earth that she is forever a part of our family, a very real part of us.  And so I am thankful that we had the chance to do that this past Saturday.

The slide show was the most emotional part of the day, but I was holding it together quite well, I thought.  Then Isaiah, who was sitting on my lap so he could see the photos, whispered sadly to me, “I know Anna is always in my heart, but I really miss seeing her.”  So much for holding it together!  But soon after that, in the midst of my emotional instability, Isaiah whispered, “Mom, could you please try not to breathe in my ear?”  At which point my struggle changed from trying not to cry too noticeably, to trying not to laugh out loud and disrupt the whole thing!  What would we do without kids?

We sang “I am Jesus’ Little Lamb” in church this past Sunday, as well as during the St. John chapel service last week.  I shouldn’t include myself in the “we” as I don’t know if I’ll be ever be able to make it through singing that song again.  We sang it at Anna’s funeral, and we chose the third verse as part of what will be on Anna’s gravestone.  I hope that I will always be able to picture Anna and hear her voice singing it as one of her favorite songs!  Even though I can’t sing it, I treasure its reminder that Anna is held safely in Jesus’ arms.