A Tragedy of the Heart

"...the silence of God is God."  Carolyn Forche

There are no pure and simple words to explain the tragedy of children’s lives being recklessly destroyed.  And I cannot help but think of children in the Middle East who are dying of war; of children in Africa who are dying of AIDS; of children worldwide who are dying of starvation, domestic violence, and neglect.  Yet still, in this country they call “Leader of the Free World,” to have twenty children die at the hand of another near-child, we should call it a tragedy of the heart.

In this country of the free, children are dying daily through acts of violence.  They die and are taken from us way too soon.  Where is our hope of the future if our children do not live?  But that is another essay.  This one is about death.

For some of us, death is not an end but just the next step on a continued journey.  People die all the time; young and old alike.  And for many various reasons they die.  We die.

Perhaps we delude ourselves by thinking there is something beyond this life so that when the final breath is taken we will not be afraid. 

And what is in that moment?  Do we die alone?  Most think not.

Someone once said that at the moment of our death, when we cross over, we take with us all the love we have ever known, and all the love we have never known. 

Some say we are escorted by angels, by ancestors, by holy beings.

Some say we are reincarnated into the next personhood and that everyone in your life, at this very moment, you have known before, in another time.

Is there any solace in the death of a child whether it was by gunshot, by violence, by self wound, by accident, by disease?  People will say what they need to say and do what they need to do to get through the grief, the shock, the disbelief and the tremendous pain.  Can we hold one another long enough, close enough, strongly enough through the unbearable weight of remorse?

And what do we know of God?  Do you cry out in anger that God was there or that God was not there?