Fathers' grief

Perry, the "doorkeeper in the house of the Lord," greets me most Sunday mornings with a firm handshake. We banter about his ubiquitious cowboy hat and boots, or the weather, or something equally innocuous. But this bright January morning he takes my hand and doesn’t let go. A man of few words, they spill out.

“Just want you to know how much we’re thinking of you. We buried a child too, you know. It was 24 years ago…” I didn’t know. I know very little about Perry, but now I know his heart.

Bill writes my daughter. “I have never met you but I know your mom well. We’ve been trustees together for many years. I don’t get to meetings much now that I’m well into my eighties, but I had to write to say I know a little of what you are going through. Our only son died suddenly when he was just ten. He went into diabetic shock and was gone. It’s been 47 years but I still feel it. It’s always fresh.”

How many times have I talked with Bill? Good conversations about a wide range of topics. Warm, friendly interaction for years, but never a hint of the pain just beneath the surface of his mind.

The night after we lay Keren’s ashes in the ground, Ed writes of laying his little daughter to rest almost 40 years ago, “Very tough time ... and I remember burying Amy almost as if it were yesterday. Burned into my mind ... and it was another bone-chilling, wintry, wind-blown day. Cold beyond cold in mind and heart.”

Young Don has no words. He simply wraps me up in his long arms and won’t let go. “I wanted to come to the service, but one of us had to stay with the kids, and it was more important that my wife be there.” He’s not lost any of his children, but he’s come quite close, and I sense in his silence that he knows this could have been his pain.

Old Eddie calls from Maine. "You all come up here and stay on the island for a while." A huge offer from a grandfather who lost his little Liv, the sunshine of his island, two years ago. Vic writes, "Been there. Know how it feels." He too lost a granddaughter a few years ago.

Losing a child seems to sear the soul. While the women around me speak volubly, I find the deeper words come from men. I watch my son-in-law sit alone in a crowded room, silent, shrouded in grief. Perhaps fathers and grandfathers, ever our protectors, are wounded that death -- the unthinkable -- came on their watch.

As I move toward Good Friday, I ponder the Father who lost his only Son. Easter comes, yes, but only after mourning.

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