As far as your own son goes...ours left four years ago. He was not academically inclined, and college was a non-starter for him. His very graduation was so near a thing that we prayed constantly to just let him get that final D and be done.
He opted for the National Guard. I told him two things on the day he left for basic: don't ever ask to move back, and don't ever ask for money. (Of course, if there were an emergency, we'd bend both of those rules. Please don't tell him.) About halfway through basic, he called, saying that we wanted to drop out. This was his first time away from home; that and the rigors of Army life had him quite down. This news alarmed my wife and I. Barely graduating high school and dropping out of the Army would leave him with essentially nothing, and the scars of failure would have certainly deepened. When he and his Army supervisor called, I simply asked him to give it two more weeks. I told him that I knew that he could make it, and that I understood the struggles he was experiencing. He did stick it out, and we didn't hear from him again until he was almost done. The voice I heard on the other end of the line at that point was almost unrecognizable. He was so proud that he was about to finish, and he suddenly had plans (plans other than which computer game he'd be playing next, that is). Complete about face.
Last year he got married and is doing wonderfully. He is even considering college as a means of advancing his career. We still aren't quite sure what happened.
Everything you said about life is true, Peachy. We are, each of us, so damn lucky to have our lives and to share them with the ones we love. I truly cherish each day; I love my life with a terrific passion, but I'm also ready to go any day. All we can do is life as fully as we can for as long as we can. Our children will face all of these same constraints and realizations. Hopefully, we will be in their memories until they reach the end of their own journey.
Your son has wonderful parents. He will be just fine if they let him grow up.
Your post today is painful. I’m 64 today and your friend’s huge loss, your children becoming adults, your friend who lost her husband and father of ten and your miscarriage take me back to many losses. I was 15 when my father died in his plane in the Rockies, we spent eleven days searching for him. I was 34 when I miscarried my third child and 37 when my youngest son fell in my employer’s pool. I pulled him out not breathing, no heartbeat and no one to help. By God’s great grace I had been trained as a life guard and in advanced first aid. I went to work on him, hysterically but also by God’s great and generous grace, effectively. He’s a newly married engineer now and his first child is due in December. That horrific event was very hard to pass through. I spent months thinking that he had actually died and I was living in a fantasy. I can’t really express how traumatic it was and how guilty I felt that his accident had occurred on my watch. I think God let me keep him because he knew I was too weak to survive losing him. I pray daily my gratitude for my sons, all good, kind young men.
I say a daily prayer for the souls of beloved friends and loved ones who are with God. I’m at the age now where I know more who are gone than are still here. I view the end of life now with less fear than I once did and I view life with somewhat more sorrow. I wish I could help more young women to understand what’s truly important in life, like children and being there to love and raise those children and how having and cherishing those children is truly the most valuable and fulfilling thing a woman will ever do. Watching them grow up and create their own families is incredibly hard and equally joyful and we do survive it, especially if you’re fortunate enough to be with the husband who made it possible. Just as surviving the loss of people you love and value is doable but very painful. For those of us who believe in and trust our Savior it gives us an incredible reunion to look forward to. I guess without the sorrow it would be harder to truly appreciate the joy. I hope we humans come sooner rather than too late to appreciate all that God has given us, including the pain. And I pray we wake up in time to save one of God’s greatest gifts, this glorious nation and our freedom. Hangin there Peachy, you do survive the growing up, the loss and the continual change. Hopefully your words will help all of us to save this nation and our children and someday we’ll all come home to God.
This was so heart-wrenching but such valuable reading. A beautifully poignant piece from the finest independent thinker out there writing on the internet.
Beautiful thoughts on a painful topic. It’s about the most devastating thing that can happen to us, losing a child. It leaves a void that can never be filled, don’t bother trying. Best advice I have seen: “talk about me in a normal tone of voice, as if I am in the next room.”
This is a beautiful post, and a great one for me to read today--it's one of those days when I feel sorrow for all mankind. I don't know if it's age or hormones or what, but I get one (sometimes a two-day stretch) every couple of weeks now. I just tell myself to get through it and it will pass, and in the meantime to offer it up. This reminds me that we who are not grieving, and even those of us who are, are still fortunate.
I don't know that Victor Hugo poem but one of my favorites from French class was his "Demain, des l'aube," which is very short. It begins "tomorrow, at dawn" and says what he's planning to do--get up, start walking, alone and not look at anything beautiful around him -- and at the very end, you find out he's going to his daughter's grave to place a flower on it. It has the same tone as this post.
I say a number of prayers/psalms each day. One if my favorites is the Full Serenity Prayer. Great one to ask God fir strength and serenity in living through the daily travails and challenges we all face.
It’s not the end but a new beginning with such adventures that you cannot imagine.
And your dear friend lost a cherished baby but gained a really involved intercessor in heaven. Nobody wants to hear these things: everybody wants what they had back. But the only failure in life is the failure to get to heaven at the end of it. And when you get there Honor will be there having been nurtured by the mother of God herself. And your friends husband handsome by holiness waiting to welcome those ten kids one at a time. It’s so awful to think of as a mother or father doing the day to day. But if we do our best most of the time(we are, after all, human) we get to know and love these peeps of ours forever in perfect happiness. We have a short time with them on earth. But eternity ? I wish no one an early or tragic death but when the time for that death comes we will be happy beyond human understanding! Plus - extra good news- there is no time in eternity which means no rhythm which means we can all dance for joy!
Peachy, do not feel sad. Your oldest will change tremendously in college and you will look back at how much he has changed and grown at his college graduation and you will actually be glad. He will change for THE BETTER so embrace the change. I went through what you went through with my two boys so trust me on this one. They CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.
I don’t comment here often, but, Peachy, this one breaks my heart. I’ve said a Hail Mary for your friend and pray she finds comfort in the Magnificat.
Sadly, I only have one child who’s headed into 8th grade, I’m holding on to what little is left of his childhood with everything I can! You’ve built an amazing life and family….I wish I had woken up sooner!
Thank you Peachy. With all the political nonsense I expose myself to, reading your heartfelt, uplifting and spiritual essays resets me and reminds me what's important.
Ugh!! Right in the feels, peachy!! My mom and i say to each other, every tjme one of us checks up on a friend and finds out how heavy their burdens are, "We have no problems." Because we don't. I would not trade my silly annoyances (because thats all my problems are) for anyone else's. Be grateful for the plate God has set, it could always be worse. May God bless all of your comings and goings.
Well, your friend's eulogy had me tearing up...
As far as your own son goes...ours left four years ago. He was not academically inclined, and college was a non-starter for him. His very graduation was so near a thing that we prayed constantly to just let him get that final D and be done.
He opted for the National Guard. I told him two things on the day he left for basic: don't ever ask to move back, and don't ever ask for money. (Of course, if there were an emergency, we'd bend both of those rules. Please don't tell him.) About halfway through basic, he called, saying that we wanted to drop out. This was his first time away from home; that and the rigors of Army life had him quite down. This news alarmed my wife and I. Barely graduating high school and dropping out of the Army would leave him with essentially nothing, and the scars of failure would have certainly deepened. When he and his Army supervisor called, I simply asked him to give it two more weeks. I told him that I knew that he could make it, and that I understood the struggles he was experiencing. He did stick it out, and we didn't hear from him again until he was almost done. The voice I heard on the other end of the line at that point was almost unrecognizable. He was so proud that he was about to finish, and he suddenly had plans (plans other than which computer game he'd be playing next, that is). Complete about face.
Last year he got married and is doing wonderfully. He is even considering college as a means of advancing his career. We still aren't quite sure what happened.
Everything you said about life is true, Peachy. We are, each of us, so damn lucky to have our lives and to share them with the ones we love. I truly cherish each day; I love my life with a terrific passion, but I'm also ready to go any day. All we can do is life as fully as we can for as long as we can. Our children will face all of these same constraints and realizations. Hopefully, we will be in their memories until they reach the end of their own journey.
Your son has wonderful parents. He will be just fine if they let him grow up.
Your post today is painful. I’m 64 today and your friend’s huge loss, your children becoming adults, your friend who lost her husband and father of ten and your miscarriage take me back to many losses. I was 15 when my father died in his plane in the Rockies, we spent eleven days searching for him. I was 34 when I miscarried my third child and 37 when my youngest son fell in my employer’s pool. I pulled him out not breathing, no heartbeat and no one to help. By God’s great grace I had been trained as a life guard and in advanced first aid. I went to work on him, hysterically but also by God’s great and generous grace, effectively. He’s a newly married engineer now and his first child is due in December. That horrific event was very hard to pass through. I spent months thinking that he had actually died and I was living in a fantasy. I can’t really express how traumatic it was and how guilty I felt that his accident had occurred on my watch. I think God let me keep him because he knew I was too weak to survive losing him. I pray daily my gratitude for my sons, all good, kind young men.
I say a daily prayer for the souls of beloved friends and loved ones who are with God. I’m at the age now where I know more who are gone than are still here. I view the end of life now with less fear than I once did and I view life with somewhat more sorrow. I wish I could help more young women to understand what’s truly important in life, like children and being there to love and raise those children and how having and cherishing those children is truly the most valuable and fulfilling thing a woman will ever do. Watching them grow up and create their own families is incredibly hard and equally joyful and we do survive it, especially if you’re fortunate enough to be with the husband who made it possible. Just as surviving the loss of people you love and value is doable but very painful. For those of us who believe in and trust our Savior it gives us an incredible reunion to look forward to. I guess without the sorrow it would be harder to truly appreciate the joy. I hope we humans come sooner rather than too late to appreciate all that God has given us, including the pain. And I pray we wake up in time to save one of God’s greatest gifts, this glorious nation and our freedom. Hangin there Peachy, you do survive the growing up, the loss and the continual change. Hopefully your words will help all of us to save this nation and our children and someday we’ll all come home to God.
This was so heart-wrenching but such valuable reading. A beautifully poignant piece from the finest independent thinker out there writing on the internet.
Beautiful thoughts on a painful topic. It’s about the most devastating thing that can happen to us, losing a child. It leaves a void that can never be filled, don’t bother trying. Best advice I have seen: “talk about me in a normal tone of voice, as if I am in the next room.”
This is a beautiful post, and a great one for me to read today--it's one of those days when I feel sorrow for all mankind. I don't know if it's age or hormones or what, but I get one (sometimes a two-day stretch) every couple of weeks now. I just tell myself to get through it and it will pass, and in the meantime to offer it up. This reminds me that we who are not grieving, and even those of us who are, are still fortunate.
I don't know that Victor Hugo poem but one of my favorites from French class was his "Demain, des l'aube," which is very short. It begins "tomorrow, at dawn" and says what he's planning to do--get up, start walking, alone and not look at anything beautiful around him -- and at the very end, you find out he's going to his daughter's grave to place a flower on it. It has the same tone as this post.
So, so sad. I’ve had miscarriages in early pregnancy, and they are devastating. I can’t imagine losing a term baby. Lots of love to your friend.
I was at a funeral like this this year. I will never forget the tiny casket. God bless you and your friend and Moira Rose.
I say a number of prayers/psalms each day. One if my favorites is the Full Serenity Prayer. Great one to ask God fir strength and serenity in living through the daily travails and challenges we all face.
Danny Huckaber
It’s not the end but a new beginning with such adventures that you cannot imagine.
And your dear friend lost a cherished baby but gained a really involved intercessor in heaven. Nobody wants to hear these things: everybody wants what they had back. But the only failure in life is the failure to get to heaven at the end of it. And when you get there Honor will be there having been nurtured by the mother of God herself. And your friends husband handsome by holiness waiting to welcome those ten kids one at a time. It’s so awful to think of as a mother or father doing the day to day. But if we do our best most of the time(we are, after all, human) we get to know and love these peeps of ours forever in perfect happiness. We have a short time with them on earth. But eternity ? I wish no one an early or tragic death but when the time for that death comes we will be happy beyond human understanding! Plus - extra good news- there is no time in eternity which means no rhythm which means we can all dance for joy!
Such a profound and beautiful essay, thank you for this.
We’re all in this together, all of it. We’re grateful for each other and for you, Peachy, for putting it all so beautifully.
Peachy, do not feel sad. Your oldest will change tremendously in college and you will look back at how much he has changed and grown at his college graduation and you will actually be glad. He will change for THE BETTER so embrace the change. I went through what you went through with my two boys so trust me on this one. They CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.
I don’t comment here often, but, Peachy, this one breaks my heart. I’ve said a Hail Mary for your friend and pray she finds comfort in the Magnificat.
Sadly, I only have one child who’s headed into 8th grade, I’m holding on to what little is left of his childhood with everything I can! You’ve built an amazing life and family….I wish I had woken up sooner!
Thank you Peachy. With all the political nonsense I expose myself to, reading your heartfelt, uplifting and spiritual essays resets me and reminds me what's important.
Beautifully written. Blessings and Gods grace to your friend and all who are suffering.
Ugh!! Right in the feels, peachy!! My mom and i say to each other, every tjme one of us checks up on a friend and finds out how heavy their burdens are, "We have no problems." Because we don't. I would not trade my silly annoyances (because thats all my problems are) for anyone else's. Be grateful for the plate God has set, it could always be worse. May God bless all of your comings and goings.