Faithful Paradox

One of my sons had a birthday last week. I had a number of people over the weekend ask if he had a good day. If I’m honest, it’s a difficult question to answer.

I think the hope and expectation is, “Yes! He had a great day!” In many ways, he did have a great day. The reality is also that special days are hard.

Most days, there is a dull ache that simply accompanies all of life; an ache we get used to. It’s like a quiet, sad song that plays a background tune. It’s there, but it becomes such a part of life that it’s easy to forget the sound or ignore its tune. Special days like birthdays, however, cause that strains of that sad song to be amplified. Birthdays are days that have specific memories attached to them. There are specific moments that come to mind that stir once again the reality of loss.

How was my son’s birthday? It was a good day. We celebrated him as well as we could, doing many of his favorite things. We ate his favorite food. We made his favorite dessert. We played a family game of baseball and laughed at how terrible we are at batting. We enjoyed being together. We set aside time to honor him and delighted in his life.

At the same time, my son cried the night before his birthday as he anticipated the next day, remembering the last birthday when Ezra was here. He cried several times throughout the day of his birthday. He grieved as he remembered how Ezra was so generous and always, always had a thoughtful gift to give. He mourned that Ezra was not there, did not play baseball with us, could not celebrate. He wondered if Ezra knew it was his birthday and if he got to see us celebrating. He questioned if birthdays matter in heaven. And as his mom, I tried to help him balance the sorrow of loss with the delight of celebration; a difficult and tenuous balance for anyone, but especially for a child.

I suppose there is nothing profound in this post. It’s simply to offer a moment of being seen and understood to those who intimately know the complexity of these days. It’s to give voice to the difficulty of answering, what seems to be, a very simple question. It’s also intended to offer insight to those who care deeply but don’t fully understand.

In the words of Ezra, birthdays are, “sweet-bitter.” There is sweetness in the celebration; in the life that we see here on earth in which we find joy. And there is bitterness in the sorrow. There is pain in the loss. There is grief in what will never be. Often, the bitter feels as if it outweighs the sweet, but we fight to find delight and we give a collective sigh of relief that another day that highlights loss is now past.

It’s complicated. It was a good day, but it was also a really hard day.