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| Ryan's brother Owen in the hospital |
When someone close to you dies, it's never easy trying to recover. Even if you weren't so close with such person, you have to find a new way to live. You have to remind yourself that the person is no longer around. And that reality sometimes falls gently, while at other times it bursts in on your thoughts.
We lost Ryan's brother, Owen, over a month ago from complications with his brain tumor. The progress he made astounded his doctors. But the hemorrhage happened without warning. I've only known him for five years, and Ryan and I have lived out of state. Still, though, I would catch myself thinking, Next time we visit...
But the next time we visit, he won't be there.
This experience of loss is different every time it happens. For example, when my grandmother died over four years ago, I had so much trouble coping. I tried my best to "be strong" because people told me to. But then I couldn't be strong anymore.
She was sick for six months as well. I spent my free moments after class and work with her, either at home or at the hospital. I sat next to her when she received her chemo treatments. I drove her around and helped with errands and chores. I stayed in her bed while she fell asleep. And then I'd go back to school and work and carry on as normal.
Then, one day when we knew she was nearing the end, I broke down at work. I couldn't go on as normal that day, alienating myself from my work. I felt so embarrassed and attempted to hide my tears. One of my coworkers saw and said to me, "You need to try to pull it together. You need to be strong. Everyone goes through this." I still remember his stern gaze, his lack of compassion.
We never know exactly how someone else is feeling, even if we think our experiences are similar.
Even then, my mental framework caused me to experience my grandmother's death with much more difficulty than I would have experienced it now. But, it's arguable that it's partly because of my experience of her death that I have the mental framework and worldview I have now.
When Ryan's brother passed away, my experience of it versus that of his family is of course different. The emptiness—the knowledge that there is now a lack causing us to find a new way to live—is still present in varying degrees.
But one thing his family does have, which I lacked before my grandmother died, is faith. The word "faith" can be met with rolling eyes. It's too often perceived as a willful denial of reality, a clinging to ignorance for the sake of happiness, a coping mechanism for the feeble minded.
That perception can't be farther from the truth. Faith is a palpable act of will. It's the bold admission that we're weak on our own. It's what we have when we look eternity in the face and let it kiss us on the cheek even though we know it will kill us.
And, often times, it's something we find only when we have nothing left. "For when I am weak, then I am strong," St. Paul says.
Something I love to reflect on is a passage in the book of Matthew when Jesus draws our attention to the ways of nature: "Look at the birds of the sky," He says. "They do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them." In the same passage, He also says. "Learn from the way the wild flowers grow...I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?"
This is not to deny the reality of Evil. Jesus knew better than anyone human suffering.
The passage is not meant to tell us "God never gives us more than we can handle," which is an inaccurate platitude anyway. Neither is it meant to encourage us to repel help when it's needed. Jesus never lacked compassion.
What it's telling us is that God will give us what we need—although not always in the way we perceive "need"—at the precise moment we need it. And sometimes it means through suffering and loss when we'd prefer a miracle.
Ryan's brother Owen knew this. He started to go blind at a young age and had to learn to adapt. He used his affliction to help others overcome theirs. When he developed brain cancer and became so fragile and close to death, he was the one telling us that it was going to be okay.
At first I was angry. He had just turned eighteen, after all. He had university information arriving in the mail. He was always so prayerful and gracious, and the diagnosis felt unfair. "God has to come through for him with a miracle," I thought.
Well, He didn't.
Someone stronger in faith may not have felt this sting, like I did when he was diagnosed with an inoperable and barely treatable glioblastoma. But then I grew to accept the outcome. And the outcome is that while his family no longer has him here, Earth has gained another intercessor.
Every day, we have to look eternity in the face anew. We have to make a decision each morning how we're going to proceed.
The option for those with faith is clear: We need to foster beauty and truth in a world plagued by ugliness and false-promises.
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