Understanding the Greatest Sorrow: A Reflection on Tragedy in Three Parts

Introduction: My Background Story

Three years ago my three year old grandson and several of his little cousins were visiting at my mother’s house in Central Florida.  I was outside while inside toddlers in a line were parading around the house holding a brass candlestick as a scepter.  One minute they were marching, disappearing out of sight into another room.  The next minute there was a scream and a wail and panic.  By the time I got inside one of the parents was holding a towel to my grandson’s head.  There was so much blood.

If you have never seen a small child hurt like that, you probably cannot imagine how shocking, how traumatic the experience, the urgency you feel, the vital need to heal and comfort that child now, immediately.  I’m sure it’s most intense when the injured one is your own child or grandchild. 

My wife and I bundled him up and raced him to the hospital emergency room.  We were rushed right back into the treatment area.

It was a nasty cut over his eye.  After a while, the doctor got the bleeding to slow to a trickle.  But he needed stitches.  The team of a doctor and two nurses needed our help.  We had to hold the boy while the stitches were applied. 

My grandson, not really conscious, could not understand what was happening.  He struggled and thrashed and cried out.  We held him as still as we could while the doctor worked on his brow.  We tried shushing him, telling him he would be all right, but still he resisted and fought and cried.

He didn’t have the words to say so, but my grandson believed in those moments that he was engaged in a struggle for his life.  His face, normally so cheerful and friendly, was grim and determined as he fought with all his strength for survival.  We could not comfort him while his laceration was being sutured.  For him the experience was existential; for us it was heartbreaking.

Thank God the process was over fairly quickly.  The wound was closed, sterilized, and bandaged.  We were able to carry him home, where over the next couple of hours the sobs became less frequent as he gradually calmed down and slept. 

We were lucky.  The damage was not as bad as we thought at first.  The cut healed well and the scarring wasn’t bad.  We were worried, but as it turned out he never seemed to resent either of us for holding him still as he struggled.

If my wife or I could have traded places with him during all that, either one of us would have done so in a heartbeat.  But life doesn’t work that way.  We could not take his pain and angst and terror away.  We could only hold him and whisper reassurances while he went through it.  That’s all we could do.

 

Part Two: The Tragic News

Last Tuesday evening, only a few miles from where my grandson suffered his head injury, an innocent two year old boy fell victim to a more tragic fate.  He was playing happily at the lakeshore, on vacation, parents nearby, when he was snatched away.  My heart goes out to the family of little Lane.  His father jumped to save him, leapt into the water, grabbed the alligator’s jaws and tried to pry them open.  But he couldn’t.  No one could have.  The alligator pulled Lane under the water, where he drowned.  His body wasn’t found until the following afternoon.

This time for an innocent child there would be no coming back.  His cries and struggles for life were in vain.  There would be no calming down into sleep, no reunion with family, no time to heal.  He is gone, taken cruelly before his time.

I’m certain his parents would have traded places with Lane if they could.  But that’s not how life works.

We all know of this, and other great tragedies that devastated the Orlando area last week.  Death has stalked the innocent and interrupted lives being well-lived.

 

Part Three: The Vision

I had a dream yesterday morning in the darkness just before the light. 

It was more of a vision, really.  I was in the skies above Florida, hovering just under high gray clouds in the moments before dawn, looking from the southwest back toward Disney and Orlando.  In the distance below and far away I could see the Seven Seas Lagoon and the Grand Floridian Hotel.  As I peered closer I could see that there was a child near the lakeshore.  He was under the water.  I felt, more than saw, that he was stuck under a log.  He was not moving. 

There was a tiny stirring.  The child seemed to be awakening.  Although his body remained motionless under the water, the child sat up.  His spirit drifted upward, above the surface.  He rubbed his eyes and looked around, confused and scared.  He didn’t seem to know where he was or what had happened.  I felt pain in my heart for his loneliness, but I was powerless to reach him.

I watched this innocent little soul waiting bravely by the lakeshore.  Gazing toward the horizon beyond the lake I saw the skyline of the city. There was movement.  Another being appeared in the sky above the city and was approaching. It was an angel coming toward the child.  I thought she was wearing a robe of gray, but perhaps that was only the predawn twilight.  She seemed to have small wings and hair blowing in the wind as she hurried across the sky in our direction.  I couldn’t see her very well, for she was so far away, but somehow I knew her name was Christina.

Christina reached the Seven Seas Lagoon and held her arms out to the child.  He put out his lower lip and seemed for a moment as if he was going to cry, but he didn’t.  The look of fear and hurt in his eyes was a bit less.  He watched the angel, and he knew she was his friend, and he reached back to her.

For a few moments, the angel rocked the child on her lap, patting him tenderly.  She sang beautiful songs to him.  They seemed to draw comfort from one another, and they were at peace.  A tiny wisp of love appeared visibly between and around them.

I became aware of a small crowd that had gathered in the distance, low over the city.  They had been there all along, but I hadn’t noticed them because they had been huddling near the ground.  They were baffled, troubled.  Some were angry.  Some were desolate, forlorn.  All were confused.  None knew what to do or where to go next.  Then one of them noticed the two hovering over the Seven Seas Lagoon and rose up into the air a bit.  Others followed.  Soon there were more than 40 flying toward us slowly, hesitantly, not daring to believe that anything existed beyond their place of loss and mourning.

They too were angels.  Most, but not all, were young like Christina.  There were a few women, and more men.  As they approached it seemed each countenance was most characterized by sorrow.  But as they arrived, a few at a time, some began to smile.  They smiled at Christina, and they smiled at the little boy. 

By the time the last of them arrived near the lakeshore, some were interacting with the two they had come to see.  One sat beside Christina, held the boy’s hands, and talked with him.   A moment later another stroked his head and wept quietly; I could not tell if the tears were of sorrow or joy. Another patted Christina on the shoulder paternally.  Tiny sparks of joy began to be visible around the gathering. 

One or a few at a time, they all came to visit Christina and the child.  They smiled, sometimes wistfully, sometimes peacefully.  Each took comfort from the presence of the others.  There was the palpable sense of an inexplicable hope, and a gradually dawning awareness that all was not lost. 

Over the next several minutes a few straggling angels arrived, one at a time, from nursing homes, hospitals, and wherever angels come from.  All wanted to see the child.  All loved the child.  All appreciated and admired the one who was caring for the child.  All brought their own bits of fading sorrow and surprising joy to share with the others.

The entire assembly began a beautiful dance.  They floated above the water, moving gracefully around the child and the angel in the middle.  They moved inward lovingly, outward peacefully.  They rose higher, drifted back, joined hands, twirled.  One of the dancers took the child by the hands, swung him around happily, and returned him to his friend. As the dance continued the troupe spiraled upward, higher and higher.  When they began to draw near the clouds, I felt the presence of a place of love and joy in that direction.

I watched them disappear all together above the skies, and I knew.  I knew their tragedies were real.  I felt their pain and loss, and the pain and loss of the ones they had to leave behind.  I knew their wrenching grief.

I also knew the pain and loss were not the end of the story.  For beyond the inconceivably sorrowful there existed a more blessed reality.  Something from there brought to those grieving souls a spark of joy, to the forlorn a wisp of love, to the troubled a soft sensation of peace, and to the discouraged an unexpected and beautiful prospect of hope.  I knew they were finding that place together. 

 

- Gryphem