Weeping

On January 24, 2023 an unthinkable tragedy happened. A five year old girl, a three year old boy and a eight month old baby boy were strangled to death. Stop. Think about that for a moment. Three innocent children died. Consider this: Who is the most important person in a child’s life, the one they run to for help when hurting, scared or in need? Who? Mommy, Mama, Mom, Ma, Mother.

The person kids need the most in their early years, the person they trust to nurture, to care, to feed, to help, to comfort is their mother. Yet, this person whom a child trusts more than any other is the very person who took life from them, not in a quick easy way, but slowly choking the breath from them. The very breath of life left these three children, taken by the one who birthed them into this world, who they loved, trusted and admired more than any other person in the world.

I love children. I’ve volunteered for decades helping children, teaching children and playing with children. Now I’m a father of two wonderful girls. Since they were babies, I’ve cared for them, held them in my arms, read to them, played with them, fed them and protected them. I cannot imagine ever being dreprived of them. I would do anything including sacrificing my own life to protect my kids.

Nothing grieves me more, nothing breaks my heart more, nothing is more tragic than children dying, than children being harmed. I cannot comprehend how anyone could purposely harm and murder a child. It is incomprehensiable to me.

I’ve seen bits and pieces of the news, the social media posts and read arguments. This country is mad with protests. People are fighting over a trial. I cannot comprehend the focus of the news and posts. Three children died. Three children were murdered. Three beautiful, innocent children left this world. Yet people are fighting. Where is the grief, the lament, the sadness, the hurt? That is what I feel about this tragedy. I feel a deep sense of sadness. My eyes are full of tears writing this. Three children died. I weep.

Is anyone else weeping?

A Father’s Loss

I’m a dad. I love my kids. That doesn’t just mean I feel a sense of warmth and affection. It means I would sacrifice anything for my kids. I sacrifice my time, my money, my attention, my very life for my kids. They are more precious to me than anything else in this world. I could not imagine life without my kids. Should anything happen to my children, I would be devastated.

When my nephew was eighteen months old, he stopped breathing. He was resuscitated and had to be helicoptered away to a hospital in Chicago, 60 miles from where he lived. My mom called me at work. I dropped everything and drove immediately to the hospital. My heart was breaking for my nephew, my first nephew.

             Almost

Oh precious child not even two,
How it hurt to almost loose you.
Seeing you lying on that bed,
Alive but appearing nearly dead,

Was more than we could endure,
We feared we might loose you for sure.
By your side constantly we stayed.
As we held your little hand and prayed.

"Oh Lord of heaven and earth,
From the day of this child's birth,
To us, such happiness did his life convey!
Please, don't take our little one away!"

We are so thankful you are still around.
Happiness in our lives once again abounds.
We rejoice that you are still here
And that we can again hold you near.

We are thankful that you could stay
And that the Lord didn't take you away!

My cousin had an eight month old baby boy. His babysitter did something you never ever do to a baby. She shook him. My cousin’s baby boy, Shawn, died. I was devastated. Though I had only met Shawn once, I held him in my arms with only warmth and love in my heart. His death was painful.

To Shawn

When a child dies,
It seems the world cries.
Sweet innocence this day
Has been taken away.
All souls are filled with sorrow,
Making it hard to go on to tomorrow.
Everyone feels such sadness,
Wondering why this horrible madness.

What makes this day even worse
Is that this painful curse
By such violence came to be.
It's hard to grasp such absurdity.
When a little baby dies,
It seems the world cries.
Sweet innocence this day
Has been taken away.

Shawn’s baby sitter, in a fit of rage, shook and threw him when he was 18 months old. He died a week later on Feb 24th 1994.

On January 24, 2023 a father lost three children. I feel his pain. I would be devastated beyond comprehension.

Does anyone grieve for the Daddy?

The Mommy

This mother tried to commit suicide. She was in such pain that she thought it better not to live than live with her pain. She was afraid to raise her kids and thought it better they should not live than be raised wrong. You can debate her sanity. For myself, I don’t understand how a mother could do such a thing to her kids and herself. I grieve.

My dearest friend committed suicide in my house. He had not properly grieved the loss of his own mother. He was delusional and paranoid. I had gotten him to agree to go to a day program where he could receive counseling, but then he wrecked his car. While in the hospital, doctors convinced him to get psychological treatment and admit himself. He left with a plan which included living with me in my spare room and attending the day program.

I went to work. A mutual friend checked on him and found him unconscious. He had taken all his prescription pills. An ambulance took him to the hospital and doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.

That was over twenty years ago. Still, I can’t understand why my friend was in so much pain that he would end his own life.

When I was in the midst of fighting for my friends life, I wrote this:

Depression

I don't know what to do for you.
I'm at a loss.
I've paid the cost.
I've tried and tried.
I think a little of us has died.
I don't know what to do for you.

I made my body a wall
To stop you
From harming you.
I've tried and I tried
And then you nearly died.
I don't know what to do for you.

Help me. Show me how to help you.
I'm at a loss
You're the boss.
I've tried and I tried.
I've fought and I've cried.
I don't know what to do for you.

After he committed suicide, I wrote this:

The Suicide of a Friend

Three long weeks we fought
for your life.
Three long weeks we sought
to be your savior.

But you were beyond
our power.
You were too far gone
to be saved.

The person you once were
Was already gone.
The person we wanted to cure
Had already died.

We are all deeply hurt
By what was done.
Our souls are in a desert
Asking "why this?"

Still we know in our hearts
This was not you,
Who chose this life to depart
It was someone else.

The man we loved so deep
Had left us
Long before eternal sleep
Laid you to rest.

We will remember the man
Who helped so many.
We will remember the man
Who loved so freely.

We will remember the man
Who bound us together.
We will remember the man
Who unites us now.

We will not say
"Good-bye, dear friend"
But rather "until we meet again,
One sweet day."

I don’t undestand why my friend ended his own life. I grieve. Why a mother would kill her own children? I don’t understand . I grieve. Why she would try to commit suicide? I fail understand I grieve.

Fighting

Our country is so divided. We were the greatest country in the world. We were the UNITED States of America.

The Civil War and Reconstruction transformed the nation by physically restoring the Union and legally redefining it around freedom and equality. Although we were divided over slavery, the war and its aftermath created a new sense of unity. Before the American Civil War, people often said, “The United States are…” treating the nation as a collection of individual states. After the war, the phrasing shifted to “The United States is…” signaling a new sense of a single, indivisible nation. This unity was complex: while the 13th Amendment ended slavery and preserved the Union, it also brought a stronger federal government and a consolidated national identity.

Admittedly, it wasn’t easy. The time also ushered in decades of intense political, social, and racial struggles during the Reconstruction era as the nation figured out how to actually live out that unity.

I fear that is all ending. We seem more divided than ever perhaps toward a new cival war. This trial is a further demonstration of the disunity. It seems no one is listening. We have brief social media posts on both sides. People comment without knowledge. We are operating from our own paradigms. Instead of researching the truth, we respond. We don’t think. Instead, we let the media tell us how to think. We already have our preconceived notions of what is right and respond accordingly.

The Other Side

For convictions, we fight
so confident we are right.
Anger and aggression
without pausing to question
the pretexts of our certitude.
Rigid in our attitude.

It’s time we look inside
rather than trying to hide.
The fault and failure lie within
over our own self-centered sin.
Cease blaming others and God!
Let go of the deceptive facade!

Examine and evaluate,
consider convictions to abdicate.
Seek first to comprehend
what enemies apprehend.
Replace anger and apprehension
with charity and comprehension.

It breaks my heart that when children die, we don’t pause as a nation to grieve the loss. Instead, we fight.

We mask the pain by blaming:

• We blame the mother.
• We blame the father.
• We blame the medical profession.
• We blame the justice system.
• We do anything to avoid looking at our own hearts.

Are our consciences so seared that we would rather fight than grieve the loss? What is wrong with us? What is wrong with our nation? We should have stopped, lowered our flags, declared a day of mourning and fasting. We should bend our knees to our creator and beg for forgiveness, that our country would be so far away from our God-given purpose, that a mother would kill her babies.

Conflict

In a world of deceit and lies,
We rage in fiery fury.
With no time we hurry,
Never pondering, lest we revise

Our venerated held convictions.
With itching ears we hear,
Only what we hold as dear
Though they are mere fictions.

Halt the conflict we create!
Understand the other point of view!
Examine what you think is true!
Seek to love over hate!

When will we weep over our country? When will we look inside and ultimately repent of the evil within our own hearts?

I grieve for our country and I pray. Will you join me or will you continue to strive and fight further dividing out nation?