My first experience of death was when my cousin (he was 18) was killed in a car crash. I was still in elementary school at the time. He was the fun cousin, though he was quite a bit older. He’d come over, and we’d all camp out on the floor with blankets and watch the late TV together. He was a teenager, but he’d play with us all the same.
When we received the phone call, my mom didn’t want to tell my younger siblings, thinking they wouldn’t understand. I didn’t think this was right, so I told them.
I didn’t go to the funeral. We drove from Illinois to Cleveland and stayed at my Aunt’s house. The funeral was in the morning, and I didn’t really want to get up early only to see a dead body. My mother let me stay all by myself at my Aunt’s.
I saw pictures afterward, and one of my cousins told me what happened. I was glad I didn’t go, but I felt sad. My cousin, my playmate, was gone. The young man I looked up to was no longer in my life. I didn’t know it, but eighteen would become a significant age in our family, associated with both death and the frightening possibility of losing a child.
Eighteen Months
In my early twenties, I flew to California to celebrate a religious holiday. My cousin had recently had a baby. Since the holiday celebration was near my cousin’s home, I took the opportunity to visit. I love babies. I enjoyed holding her Son, Shawn, and snuggling.
When that baby boy was eighteen months old, something tragic happened. Shawn’s babysitter shook him in a moment of rage, which you should never do with a baby. He died.
I was heartbroken. I often express my feelings by writing poetry. It helps me to process them. When Shawn died, I wrote a poem to him, which was later used in the trial against his sitter to show how his death had affected the family.
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.
When my Aunt read my poem at the trial, I felt that I was sharing my grief with the world. I hoped it would help my cousin find some sense of justice, and I wanted her to know that I understood her pain and grieved with her.
My Nephew
Shawn’s death was devastating, and the age of eighteen months would take on another significance for our family. When my oldest nephew reached that same age, we had a terrifying experience of our own. He stopped breathing and had to be intubated, then airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in Chicago. My sister told me the hospital staff had trouble intubating my nephew. It was the helicopter nurse who got the right tube down his throat.
At the hospital, my nephew was put into an induced coma. He had an infection that was blocking his throat. We were told this was not something to be concerned about, but we were very concerned.
He survived, but we had nearly lost him.
I loved my nephew dearly. This was the first child born to any of my siblings. I would play on the floor with him and hold him in my arms. When I visited, he would always want to be with me. Again, I processed my feelings in a poem.
Almost
Oh precious child not even two,
How it hurt to almost lose you.
Seeing you lying on that bed,
Alive but appearing nearly dead,
Was more than we could endure,
We feared we might lose 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.
Grappling with Reasons for Suffering
When you love children as deeply as I do, losing one—or even coming close to losing one—is heartbreaking, especially when that child is part of your family.
Shawn died, while my nephew survived. Both experiences affected me deeply, and together they raised difficult questions about suffering. Why do such terrible things happen to innocent children? Why does one child die while another survives? And what does it mean for our faith when we cannot understand why these things happen?
Over time, these experiences began to shape my understanding of suffering. I came to believe that when a baby suffers, it isn’t the fault of the baby or the parents. Suffering isn’t necessarily a punishment from God.
I once spoke at my church about how bad things don’t happen because of sin, but because our world is broken. Jesus healed a man born blind and told his disciples the blindness wasn’t caused by anyone’s sin — his parents’ or his own (John 9:1-7). He also mentioned a tower that had fallen and said that those who died weren’t worse sinners than anyone else (Luke 13:2-5).
These passages helped me understand that suffering isn’t necessarily a punishment for sin. But they didn’t answer all my questions about why God allows suffering in the first place, especially involving an innocent child.
Disappointment With God
To explore those questions further, I read a book titled Disappointment with God by Philip Yancey. It dealt with 3 questions:
- Is God unfair?
- Is God silent?
- Is God hidden?
Unfair?
When we think something is unfair, it is because it doesn’t meet our expectations. If we never expected something, we would never be disappointed. Yancy concludes that life is unfair in a fallen world; God remains and stands with us in our pain. God is just because the punishment for our sins was paid by God when Jesus died. He stands with us in our pain, and he understands it because he endured the most excruciating pain imaginable. God is not the reason we have pain. We are. We rebelled against him, against the way of unselfish love, so we created a world of pain and suffering. But God didn’t abandon us to that world we created. He provided the way out through faith in the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus.
Silent?
Second, he examines God’s silence, suggesting that His quietness is an invitation to move beyond the need for constant proof and to develop a mature, trusting faith. God spoke through the prophets, and yet Israel didn’t listen to or obey his word. God desires faith and trust. Sometimes he builds it in his silence.
Hidden?
Finally, Yancey tackles why God is hidden, explaining that God chooses to veil His physical presence to allow for genuine, freely chosen love rather than forced compliance. Israel saw and experienced God in incredible ways, yet they rebelled against him. God doesn’t want obedience out of trembling fear. God desires obedience out of love. He wants us to learn to love him and others. But He doesn’t just command it; He enables us to love by His Spirit in us.
Death and Disappointment
Yancey’s questions gave me a framework for reflecting on my own experiences. They helped me think about the questions that had troubled me, even though they didn’t provide a complete explanation for everything that had happened. When I looked back on the deaths of my cousin and Shawn, and on my nephew’s survival, I found myself returning to those same three questions.
Was God Unfair?
When someone we love dies, it’s natural to feel that something is terribly unfair, especially when it’s a child who hasn’t experienced a full life. I loved my cousin and Shawn, and it was difficult to accept that their lives had ended so young.
Was God Silent?
God didn’t give me an explanation. He didn’t tell me why my cousin died, why a baby was murdered, or why my nephew lived. I still don’t understand why he saves some and not others. I don’t understand why he heals some and not others.
Was God Hidden?
God didn’t send an angel to explain why these things happened or reveal himself to me in some unmistakable way. Instead, He comforted me through poems, through family, and through a church community.
I believe God understands death and loss because Jesus died. God gave his only Son for us. God understands our pain because he experienced it. He doesn’t put us through anything he himself wasn’t willing to go through.
I never found a complete, satisfying explanation, but I found comfort from a God who understands my pain and my questions.