Ethan's First Real Easter

Easter meant more to me this year.

Sometime back I realized that although we say we are not supposed to bury our children, God has quite often set our lives on just such a course -- not merely now, when we lose our children to accidents and illnesses, addictions and suicides, wars and crime. No, even in Biblical times we mothers have buried our children.

Mary buried her son, Jesus.

Yes, He came to her on miracle and she knew from before His birth that He was God's son. When He began His ministry, He was followed by thousands and performed miracles of His own. She must have been amazed that the babe she had held in her arms, a child who may have seemed fairly regular much of the time, had grown into the man He became. We have no inkling that God or His angels ever revealed to her the ultimate plan.

Mary didn't know when she watched Her son be reviled by her neighbors, crucified between two thieves, and then taken from the cross, battered and bleeding, still warm but without life in His body, that there was some greater purpose to her loss. During that most human of times between the time He was crucified and Easter morning, she was just as I have been for four months -- a grieving mother.

Surely during that time she questioned God, "Why?" Surely she asked, "Why work such a miracle to give me your son? Why spare Him from the soldiers' spears as a baby? Why grant Him the power to work miracles and minister to thousands? Why would you do all of that, take Him safely through so much, and then let Him be taken and killed? Why is my baby dead? Why is my son laying cold and lifeless in a grave during this holy time when he should be here with me and the people who cared about Him?"

Any mother who has lost a child, a son, has the same questions in essence. We don't wonder about the miracles, but we do wonder why they may have been spared one ailment, walked away from a car crash, made the right choices for so long to suddenly be just as lost to us as Jesus when they rolled the stone across His tomb.

Like I have been, she was surrounded by people who cared about her, people who loved her son, people who were as bewildered by how things seemed to have turned out as she was. None of them knew what was coming. Like me and my comforters, we had all thought things would work out for the best.

But I also realized this Easter how it was so much worse for them. I had thought, how wonderful that her grief only lasted those three days before the miracle at the tomb; how unimaginable it must have been to suddenly have Him back and be lifted from the pit of despair by His return. Then I realized how much darker those days were, not just because of the persecution and uncertainty, because they did not know the world had changed and that the impossible had become possible.

As several grieving mothers posted messages about their children spending Easter in heaven on Facebook, I came to a realization that had previously eluded me. Before Jesus, death and hell had not been conquered. When you died, had you not managed to live a spotless life, unless you were one of the old-time prophets who walked with God, the grave was an uncertain place. Had there been adequate sacrifices on your behalf? Had you broken one of the laws that your religion decreed were necessary to be just? Had you been good enough for a reward?

Even knowing how perfect Jesus was and that He was the son of God, once He was taken and crucified, Mary and those closest to Him must have doubted. Beyond all the questions about why His life had ended as it had, beyond the horror of those final hours, there had to be an uncertainty that went to the core of their beings. What now? I don't think they understood the gift they had been given and they had no way of understanding what was to come, even though they had been told repeatedly.

We don't have to have that now. I don't have to worry that my son had messed up and squandered the gift of his life, that he had sinned and that his eternity is in question because Jesus took care of that. He wiped the slate clean and kept wiping it clean every time he messed up. He does the same for me and for those who will call upon his name. When Ethan died and his body was subjected to an autopsy and then buried in the ground, I didn't have to worry about what came next. When I got the call that he was dead, I knew he was already in heaven. Although he was struggling on earth, his ultimate fate had not been up for grabs for a long time.

At the same time, I don't know how anyone gets through this without God and the belief that what He promised is real and that our time in these earthly bodies is just a brief part of our existence. I know there are people who find ways to cope and survive, people who are like the professor in "God's Not Dead," denying God's existence because they are angry at how life turned out, when they are actually angry with God. I've been angry with God as well, not just at Ethan's death, but at the turns his life took and sometimes at what has happened in my own life. Not understanding, being angry and hurt doesn't undo my faith.

So this Easter it was even less about baskets and presents and eggs and new church clothes. It was about peace and resurrection and new life and belief in the promise of the empty tomb.

It was about knowing Ethan was celebrating Easter with the one who conquered death and the tomb and made it all possible. That was, almost, enough to get me through the day dry-eyed.

A River of Tears Seems to Water My New Life

I cry too much. Sometimes, I think I should be dehydrated, just from the tears.

Headed home the other night with tears running down my cheeks, I thought, "I wish I wasn't a person who cried all the time."

There was nothing really to cry about. I had just dropped the girls off at home and was headed home myself. I had money in my wallet, gas in my tank and a safe vehicle to drive. I think it was a song on KLOVE, or maybe something they were talking about on the radio, and suddenly I'm crying.

It wasn't Ethan, or grief, or overwhelming despair. Just tears.

Of course, that thought was quickly followed by another.

"No, I don't."

I realize I tread this ground repeatedly in my thoughts, but I guess that is part of making it my new reality. Each time I cross this bumpy terrain the path is a little wider and a little easier to walk. Each time this part of my journey becomes a little easier to embrace.

This fragile, caring, tearful person that I've become over the last few months is deep down a better person than the woman I was before losing my son. Although I'd give any possession I have and even my own life to have him back and whole (not just like he was before), I would not want to return to the person I was three months ago.

While I grow tired of the tears and the smeared mascara and what sometimes feels like a constant ache in my chest, losing Ethan opened my eyes and my heart to a world that I was content to ignore or brush off.

Now the pains of other people, even casual acquaintances and friends of friends, can move me to tears.

A stranger losing a child is almost more than I can bear.

The mothers I've met who are still struggling to deal with their child's addiction, or who like me are grieving, have a place in my heart and my prayers.

People who are no more than a few sentences and a picture on a Google+ site or a Facebook friendship, people who are on the other side of the world, or even not identified by a place, move me to tears, prayers and reaching out.

I find myself counseling people I would have never dreamed of counseling, or reaching out through cyberspace to let someone know they're not alone, or crying over a song on the radio, and I'm glad.

God made us to care about one another. Jesus told us to love one another and bear one another's burdens.

The world and life itself tells us to not do these things, to look after ourselves and let everyone else do the same, to keep our distance from things that don't concern us. We insulate ourselves from what and who we are meant to be, not just with one another, but with God.

We think we can take care of ourselves and we don't need to let other people into our lives. We think we can do it with God as a backup plan, a Sunday morning savior, a daddy in the sky we run to when things get rough.

Losing Ethan stripped away all that insulation and pretense.

I'm not doing it alone and some days I'm hardly doing it at all. Some days, God is doing it through me, and sometimes it's only the prayers and the realization that this is what I have to do that keep me going.

I'm so grateful for everyone who hasn't felt this pain who has reached out to me when there is nothing I can do for them. I'm so thankful for the exchange of support with others who know my pain. I'm so blessed to have found a better me through all of this who appreciates the miracle of each day and wants to feel, even when it means tears.

I still stumble. I still wish sometimes that this wasn't who I had to be, or more accurately that I didn't have to go through what I have to be this person. But I'm still trying to accept that I had to be broken to be made anew.

I'm still singing "Keep Making Me," sometimes with tears and sometimes with a thankful heart, still fearful of the words of this prayerful song, but at the same time aware that life is beyond my control. My prayer now isn't to be broken, it's to be healed and to be filled and to be this better person that I catch a glimpse of sometimes.

The one with smeared mascara because she's crying again.