by Melissa Godber, an original submission for Gritty Faith Magazine
Spring is a time of renewal. Snow begins to melt away. Brown grass gives way to bright green seemingly overnight. Daffodils shoot up from the ground, slowly revealing their sunny faces to those whose hibernation habits are starting to wane. Kids run around outdoors freely, their winter coats relegated to the closet until next season. The world is waking up, eager to embrace the new season. But how do you embrace new life when your child has died and is no longer by your side?
My son, Will, died in November 2017. He was just 13 years old and hadn’t even had a chance to truly live life yet. As I watched him take his last breaths, just before he stepped into heaven, my life as I knew it was over. My heart was shattered into a thousand pieces. Each breath I took was torture. How do you even begin to assemble those sharp shards of grief and mourning into some semblance of a life? I’m not sure. I don’t think I’ll ever know. I’m five years into this journey though, and somehow, I’ve managed to keep moving — never ahead of my grief, but I’m always being carried along by the waves of life, my sadness and sorrow floating alongside me.
Will’s birthday is on March 30, so for me, spring is an extra difficult season to navigate. Will would have been 14 years old on March 30, 2018, and the days leading up to his actual birthday were extremely difficult. Any parent grieving a lost child will tell you the same thing – those special dates are a hurdle, and you never quite know what those days will look like when they finally do arrive. But in 2018, Will’s birthday was on Good Friday.
As a person of Christian faith, the Easter season is the most important time of the year. It is a time to celebrate the resurrection of Christ and the promise of new life after death. When the realization came that Will’s birthday was at Easter, my heart was comforted in so many ways. I believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, my boy is in heaven. The reunion we will have on that day when I finally see him again will be nothing short of miraculous. Because that is what Easter is — a miracle. It is a way to know there is life after death. You just have to believe. And I do. Most importantly, though, Will also possessed the belief in the promise of Easter.
However, the promise of heaven doesn’t mean the grief and sadness on earth is any easier. When March 30 arrived that first year, I took a deep breath and held on tight. We went to the Good Friday service at our church. Then we made our way over to the home of our dear family friends. They invited us over for Will’s birthday party. They served us pizza, and they let us cry. They told stories about Will and all the fun times we shared during his too-brief life. Then they served us cupcakes from our city’s finest cupcake bakery. When my friend picked up the cupcakes earlier in the day, she shared with the person checking her out just how special these cupcakes were and how much Will loved cupcakes. Moved to tears, she refused to take payment on those cupcakes and gifted us with a way to pay tribute to my son.
Every birthday since that first one has been hard. There is no sugarcoating the reality of grief. But each birthday is different, and always, there is a gentle nudge of comfort somewhere along my path. Hope does exist. Just take a deep breath and hold on tight as you wait.
