Yesterday I posted one of Brian's blogs about him wrestling with Bertrand Russell on the nature of and the existence of God. I read and reread what he wrote contemplating the relevance of it with the journey that he had not taken nor could have even foreseen.
It was on my mind when my friend Jane called:
I have been planning on taking a road trip with my wonderful and amazing friend Jane. She is a huge inspiration to me helping to motivate me through the fear of the emotion of being vulnerable and sharing a deeper look into my life. We were planning on taking her 4-year old dog Rex who had been diagnosed with lymphoma to Florida for therapy.
He did not make it. Yesterday, on Brian's birthday she called me. Her heart had broken. Rexxie made it home from the hospital and was only home for a few minutes when he quit breathing. My empathy for her situation was not lost on her as she screamed and cursed at God for allowing such a pure and innocent creature to be taken from her. No being as perfect as him deserved death. She had planned on fixing him and letting him heal in the Florida sun next week. She blamed him, but also blamed herself: "I am an unfit mother. He was going to make it. Why didn't I just start CPR? His head went limp on my lap!" Her raw emotion flowed over my soul as I tried to find words to console her, knowing that those words did not exist.
One conclusion that she drew was difficult for me to comprehend much less find a way to defend against. She felt that since God took the very best from her, and left her ex husband alive to enjoy his material things, that he was rewarding the wicked materialistic humans and punishing those of us who found mortal souls to love deeply. The argument against this sentiment that I brought up was that those people who find pleasure and satisfaction in the material world do not know that joy that a pure and deep love that cannot be quantified by money can bring. She said that that sucks because those people just keep doing what they do, driving their BMWs and Jaguars and buying their big houses, unhurt by losing the very dearest ones they know. She compared her feelings of loss to hell, and what else could God do to her that would be worse than this? I was speechless. I let her talk, hoping that knowing that I heard her and shared her grief that she will eventually find peace. She has more boys (that's what she calls her rescue dogs) at home and they need her.
As difficult as it was to hear her soul wrenching sobs and her lamentations to heaven, part of me wanted to join the chorus and add my verse to the painful litany. I don't believe that God gave me my lovely son just to take him away, but the little girl in me wants to say whenever I get something nice it always gets ruined. And listening to Jane pound her own chest cursing herself for not being a good mother, makes my blood run cold and I understand the guilt that I own. I also have this terror that I will lose Stacy, because of my inadequacy as a parent. This is a completely irrational fear as she is a competent, beautiful young woman who is realizing her dreams, but I still feel afraid that I will get another phone call that will end my life.
Love you
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