Sadness

I haven't felt much like writing on my blog this week.  I don't much feel like it right now, either, but I think it will be good for me.

I've been really down this week.  There is a family in our ward/neighborhood whose oldest son (23 years old) took his own life on Saturday.  I know his parents and his younger sisters, who are friends with my girls, but I never actually met this young man.  I don't know what the circumstances were which led him to make such a drastic and tragic decision.  My heart aches for his family who raised him and loved him and are now left to ask themselves painful questions with no answers to come.

What a leap of faith it is to have children.  I figure I will spend the majority of my adult life bearing and raising children.  It will be my life's work.  I will celebrate with them, pray for them, think about them, sacrifice for them, cry over them, work for them, work with them, love them, learn with them, and teach them.  Then they will grow up and make their own choices.  I hope I will be pleased with many of their choices and there is a better than good chance that I, and they, will regret others of their choices.  Besides their own choices that will have happy or sad consequences, there will most likely be sickness, heartache, and loss-- much of which may be brought on by other people.

The blessings of having family is so magnificent, but conversely, the risks of heartache and sorrow are so real as well.  When I was pregnant with baby number four, she was still born at 37 weeks.  It was a horrific time in our lives.  I was so sad.  It was a depth of sadness I hadn't known before.  A few months later I became pregnant with Faith.  The risk of another still born was exactly the same as it had been for Tessa.  I had to choose to risk the chance that I could endure another entire pregnancy and still have no baby at the end.  Was that a risk I was willing to take?

It was and I decided that if the only time I was going to have with the baby (Faith) was the time that I carried her inside of me, then I would never complain of the discomforts of pregnancy.  I would treasure the time that I had with her. It had to be worth it, even if the same thing happened again.  Of course, as it turned out, Faith was born a beautiful healthy baby and has proven to be an absolute angel in our home. But the risk was there.

The risk is always there.  Terrible things can and do happen.  And it is heartbreaking.  But we knew we were going to experience both sides of the coin here on earth-- the sadness and the glory.   It is a miraculous and beautiful thing that we can have the faith to continue on with the hope that there is still more goodness and happiness in spite of evidences of such sadness at times.  I am strengthened by my faith in Jesus Christ that if we follow him all things will work together for our good.  I don't doubt that, but the experiences and feelings we have are very real.  We need to feel them.   As a friend told me after we lost Tessa, "It is okay to feel sad when there is something to feel sad about."

The premature death of this young man has shaken me this week.  Obviously the healing road for his family will be long and sorrowful.  I will feel back to normal much sooner than they will.  This is a reminder for me to be a little kinder and gentler to my people.  Hug them a little tighter and enjoy whatever goodness there is to be had--because there is so much good.