Clenching My Heart

       I feel almost ill. Every morning I read the paper and every morning I read through the obituaries. Morbid? Maybe. But you'd be surprised how many times I've stumbled across someone I know. And I never would have known otherwise. Like today. The daughter-in-law of fellow parishioners died. It's a terrible, tragic story. Many months ago Mr. and Mrs. M told us that their son and daughter-in-law were expecting. Unfortunately, the DIL had health issues and so it was a high risk pregnancy. I remember Mrs. M asking me to pray for them. Then, this fall, Mrs. M said that they had found cancer and DIL was in her third trimester. We hadn't heard from them since. Mrs. M fought tooth and nail against the cell phone tower in the steeple. Since hubby and I are wardens, she and her husband hounded us about it. Albeit in a friendly way but nevertheless unceasingly. With the other wardens they were not so nice. When the tower was erected we didn't see them anymore at church. Mrs. M told me they were leaving but that it had to do with her son and DIL, not because of the tower. At the time I didn't really believe her. I thought the fight had gone out of her, that she had lost and was giving up completely. But in retrospect, I imagine it was all too much faith-wise. Despite her best efforts, the tower went up, despite praying without ceasing, her DIL's health continued to decline.

Anyhow, I don't know when the baby was born, but Mr. and Mrs. M's granddaughter died in October. She couldn't have been more than a couple of months old if even that. Maybe she wasn't even born at all or died in childbirth. Then Mr. and Mrs. M's DIL died on Feb. 16th. She was 31 years old.

      I can't imagine what Mr. and Mrs. M's son is going through. To lose your child and then to lose your wife... How do you even recover from something like that? And how do Mr. and Mrs. M, while grieving themselves, help their son?

      Hubby and I are going to the funeral on Saturday. I sent an email to the other wardens to let them know. I wanted to tell them that despite our tenuous relationship with these people, we should be there to support them and to let them know with our actions that they are still a part of our family and we will help them get through this.

     But I didn't.

    I told them that hubby and I are going and that we thought we should notify everyone. I don't want to preach to anyone and I pray that they all have enough sense to see this for what it is: people in need of prayer and compassion.