Death In Parenting

There's a lot of death in parenting. Sometimes and most tragically it's mortal, which is of the worst kind because what we perceive as the natural order of life is thrown completely off kilter when a parent loses one of their children to death; it doesn't matter how old a parent or a child is. It just doesn't seem fair, and most parents would welcome the gift of their own life in exchange for that of one or more of their children. Victoria and I have never had to suffer such inconceivable sorrow and heartache, and we pray we never will.

But most of the time death in parenting comes about through the natural order of things and it's of the physically immortal kind, meaning that it continues to live on and propagate throughout this mortal life. In infancy, you lose their velvet soft heads and fresh smell of a life that's brand new. In toddler-hood, you lose their clingy snuggles after a painful bonk that only a mommy or a daddy can bring comfort to, and you also lose those unfiltered affectionate blurts of lovable expression. In nursery, you lose their omnipresence as their independence begins to blossom. In kindergarten, you lose their innocence and naivete as they begin to explore the world with all of its foibles and brokenness. In elementary, you lose their death-grip on family in exchange for the attractions of other friendships. In pre-teen years, you lose their unabashed identification with you as they begin to consider life beyond the immediacy of family. In teenage, you lose their fond remembrances of the past for hopeful anticipation of the future. In collegiate years, you lose their homestead dwelling for life lived outside of the immediate familial clan. In marriage, you lose their sole surname membership for the necessary and created leaving and cleaving to another.

If Victoria and I focus only on these losses, we sink into a tailspin of melancholy that is absolutely unrecoverable. But it's not there that our hearts remain fixed, but rather on the understanding that life can only continue through these deaths. Currently dying on both ends of these continuum's (between Austin & Willow) accentuates these pains evermore, but also ironically creates a peaceably soulful existence under the cycles of life that bear fruit through death. And the decisive crucible between final eternality either with Jesus or without Him, comes also and only through death.

"... unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."

(Jesus - John 12:24)

As Victoria tearfully said yesterday morning while sitting around the breakfast table and contemplating these things with Annie, "There's a lot of death in parenting." I, too, had a good little mourning cry with Victoria right after Annie pulled away to head back for more studies at Cal Poly. It's mortal being immortal.

Emotionally exhausted,

Tom (& Victoria)