In memoriam

Round anniversary of our friends’ wedding… Occasion not so extraordinary… But…

When four years and a half ago we were expecting our middle child to be born, She was waiting, too. We exchanged the news “from our bellies.” Their son was born first. Earlier than ours. And not in a way that all had expected.

He was baptized very quickly in hopsital, before his first (then it turned out – one of several that followed) operation. Afterwards – there were four years of struggle, of everyday laborious rehabilitation… Strength and kindness flowed from that Family. Small successes. Small joys.

So the Anniversary Mass is not quite ordinary. Because it takes place in the Intensive Care Unit, in hospital. The four-year old child is unconscious, and his parents, engulfed with pain, are asking the Lord to keep him alive, if He wants him to be healed. On the other hand, they are close to accepting the doctors’ diagnoses – so they ask for no more suffering for their child.

And there is this extraordinary priest with these extraordinary words. Not preaching about the pain. Not talking about leaving and losing. About Love. About the support that the spouses may give to each other. And that in the first place, the Husband is there for his Wife, and the Wife – for her Husband. And only then for their children, and for the rest of the family.

He also talks about the Marriage Vows – that they never become outdated, they have no expiry date. And that one for the other is a support on their way to salvation. And that it is Love that wins. And Love brings peace.

And that it’s good to be grateful for all the good things – and cherish the memory of those things, multiply them and share them. In good times and in bad.

That was the sermon, in those circumstances. Addressed so much to me. Also to me. To you, too… ?

Agnieszka

PS. A couple of hours after the Mass I recieve a text message that the doctors have declared the child’s brain dead and the small Angel is already in Heaven.