Will my heartache over the theft of my son’s father ever go away?
When my son experiences success in his life, will I ever stop wishing that his Dad were here to see it? When he faces obstacles, will I ever stop being angry that his Dad wasn’t given the chance to support and encourage him?
While time heals many things, I don’t believe that it heals everything.
Now and then I look back at the journal I kept for about a year after my husband died suddenly in 1996. This is what I wrote 11 weeks after my son’s father was taken from him:
It’s still very difficult for me to understand how or why God allows an innocent little boy to be deprived of his loving father. There’s no sense to it that I can see. We will make a new life together, but it hurts me so much that my – our – son has had to suffer such a traumatic blow so early in his life – one from which I could not protect him.
About six months into my premature widowhood, I wrote this about what had happened to our family:
In 17 days (my son) and I are going to Disney World – alone. I want to go but it is so sad to think about being there without John, when the three of us had gone there twice before as a happy, normal family.
(My son) and I go to the Family Mass every Sunday at church, but that always hurts too because it seems like every other family there has a father and a mother. I don’t understand why (my son) and I – and John – were not allowed to remain a happy, whole, intact family.
A few months later, as Spring arrived and T-ball began for my six-year-old, I was still incredulous about it all:
(My son) had his very first T-ball practice yesterday morning. It broke my heart to watch him being coached by other boys’ Dads – that was what John had always wanted to do with his son…Why did God take him away from his little boy? I’m asking all these “whys” again and still, there are no answers. God knows the reasons and the plan for us but he just doesn’t give us a clue.
Re-reading these journal entries a decade later, one thing in particular strikes me about them: it’s the fact that, just as easily as 10 years ago, I could have written the same words today.
I think I’ve answered my own question.