Faithful Paradox

Yesterday would have been Ezra’s 22nd birthday. In many ways, 22 years seems inconsequential. It’s just another number; another date on the calendar. Yet as I watch his friends, I see them graduating college. I see them finding their first full time jobs and stepping into new seasons. I see them marrying and launching into new stages of life, and as I watch it all, I ache… deeply. I ache for all that we will never get to experience with Ezra. I grieve for these experiences and new starts that I longed to be a part of. These dates remind me once again that a piece of my heart was shattered, and although it has healed in many ways, there are now scars; parts that broke which means my heart will never be the same. It will likely never feel fully whole; fully healed – at least until Christ returns or calls me home.

There are many days now that I carry on with life and feel little sadness. It’s not that the grief is gone or the sorrow has even changed, but I think it’s that its strain is familiar enough that I can, in many ways, tune it out. I know it’s there. When I listen, I can always hear it, but there are other songs now, present songs, that are easier to attend.

They are songs of life and living. They are birds singing in the morning and the new life that comes with spring. They are the songs of my other children who press forward in courage and step into new seasons. They are songs of new chapters in life and different perspectives. They are songs of new birth and fresh starts. Yet in all of this beauty, there is the melody of sorrow; its note carrying through it all. I hear its dirge, although quiet many days, even as the new songs perform their melodies.

What I am learning now is that both the dirge of sorrow and the songs of new life sing in harmony. Joy and sorrow live together. Grief and delight walk hand in hand. The ache is real, but so is the smile. The tears still fall but the laughter has also returned.

I miss my son fiercely. I wish he was here. Yesterday was really hard. There’s something about a birthday that screams the absence more loudly than many other days. I wish I could have celebrated him; made him a cake, bought him a gift, hugged him, told him all the things I admire and respect about him. Days like yesterday remind me that the ache is still so deep. There are moments even now that it feels hard to breathe because it hurts so badly. Even as I type, my eyes are filled with tears.

As a family, we took the day to remember him. We went to his favorite coffee shop and had tacos at his favorite dinner spot. I wore an old hat of his all day. We talked about him; the things we miss (and the things that are not as hard to miss). We honored him as we could. When the day was finished, we chose to once again tune our ears to hear the joyful songs of today, even though it required us to strain for those melodies of joy at the end of a day of sorrow.

The melody of sorrow has sung its tune every day since Ezra went home to Jesus. Some days it’s louder and other days it goes unnoticed. Its melody, now, blends in harmony with the other songs of life. Days like yesterday, with another missed birthday, caused the sad song to be the loudest elegy my heart hears; at least for the moment. I know it will quiet again, blending its sorrowful notes with the joyful tunes of life, creating a haunting harmony that whispers lines of both beauty and loss.

I miss my son. I grieve his death. The ache is still profoundly painful on days like missed birthdays. The sad melody of sorrow was the primary tune I could hear yesterday. It was loud. It drowned out the the other songs of life; at least for the day. As I listened to its melody, however, I remember there is hope. There is hope because one day, this melody of sorrow will no longer sing and I long for that day.