Little Light

I want to say how beautiful the flowers were. How uplifting the deacon's words were. How much comfort and reassurance there is in prayer, and down as people can be on the ritualism of Catholicism, there is comfort in a highly ritualistic prayer like the rosary, because of the strength of community, the sense of family even beyond blood.

I want to talk about how the deacon pointed out that Luke or Lucas means light, and how in the twelve days he was with us, little Luke became a light to us, in his fight and in our loss. To me it has no more meaning than what we give it, but the meaning we give it can be a light to guide us as long as we live.

I want to talk about how it seems significant to me that he lived twelve days and that the Epiphany was on the twelfth day of Jesus' life. I don't know the significance, but it strikes me.

I want to talk about... about Baby Luke himself. How... how beautiful he was laying there, swathed in soft white cloths, without tubes, without machines. He was so tiny, his hands only an inch across. But... weak and undeveloped as he was, he was perfect. A tiny perfect human being who could have been so many things. Who can be so many things still, if only we let him.

I want to bring all of these things forward, and weave from them some fabric to warm me and shield me from this sort of pain. I can think of them, but I can't... I can't really feel them yet.

All I can feel is that...
Damn it, they shouldn't have to make caskets that small.

Calm before the not calm

Today I was going to get a lot done. Now I'm only going to get a little done, and spend the rest of the time being a bit of a bum. Because tomorrow is going to be incredibly busy.

I will be playing in a concert.

I will be driving to New Branfels.

I will be attending a prayer service for baby Luke.

I will be driving back, because I have too much to get done at work on Monday before I take my time off.

That's okay. I really don't feel like doing anything today anyways.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers

Baby Luke passed away last night. It's easy enough to say that life would always have been difficult. But life is a blessing and a gift, and it's hard to let it go in ourselves and in the people we love. Especially the very little people who we don't get to keep with us for long.

He was born on the same day as the Virginia Tech shootings. Maybe this sorrow isn't played out on the national stage, but this hits much closer to home for me and my family.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.... ~ John Donne

What though the sea with waues continuall
Doe eate the earth, it is no more at all:
Ne is the earth the lesse, or loseth ought,
For whatsoeuer from one place doth fall,
Is with the tide vnto an other brought:
For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought. ~ Edmund Spenser

John Donne got it wrong, or was at least looking at it too narrowly. We are not diminished, but we are transformed. There's hope in that, if I can accept the change with grace. But it's hard, and it does feel more like loss right now.