In the shuffle between starter houses and first babies and getting into more suitable homes, two of my seven children (my twin girls) had moved back home with their husbands and children. Three households in one house and the return to diapers and crying babies and making room for everyone’s everything everywhere, while it took some energy and flexibility, brought a lot of life and laughter and joy to Gram Gram and Grandad. In close proximity, it gave us the chance to bond deeply with our grandchildren.
And so, when grief came, it shook us profoundly. One Sunday, in the joyous morning bustle of getting ready for Mass, preparing food, and packing diaper bags, a terrible sound rang through the house. I paused in uncertainty. Then I heard it again: a father’s painful groan from my granddaughter’s bedroom down the hall. I stepped toward the sound to meet her daddy carrying a lifeless little body from the room and laying her at my feet. Our beautiful two-year-old Jane Kathryn had passed through the veil to Heaven overnight. What prayer does one pray when holding the breathless body of the most joyous light in your life?
Sudden death is devastating and disorienting. The meaning of everything is suspended in the overwhelming shock. And in the whirlwind of emergency personnel, police interviews, and the parade of relatives and friends who came to support us that day, how could we pray? When hearts are jolted and plunged into grief by the awful word that an innocent little one has gone from this life, how do we hold our hearts open to the Lord? In this moment, Jane’s parents ran over to me to weep on my shoulders, pleading, “What just happened?!” And I could only sputter, “I don’t know. But we have to give her back.” The most precious thing we had received, we had to surrender back to the Lord. And grace was certainly at work as they both nodded and said, “Yes,” weeping as only parents can weep for their first child, for their shattered expectations, for all that must come, which they could barely imagine.
Over that whole day and many days after, as the waves of grief would overwhelm, I would simply say, “Yes, Jesus. I cannot understand, but I surrender her to you.” And our unuttered prayer was looking for signs of God’s presence in all this. There was an immediate consolation in knowing with certainty that Jane Kathryn was with the Lord, that she had closed her eyes in sleep and opened them in Heaven. There was also a deep recognition of the blessing he had provided in advance by putting us all in the same house for these months, so that no one had to bear this pain alone. It was a shared pain.
That evening, and many evenings after, we would just “be” together, without speaking; sitting in the living room in our profound sorrow, supporting one another with our presence, unable to share more than our shared grief. And so often I would realize that the Lord was right there, right in our broken hearts, right in the silence of our shared silence, in the tears we shed and the tears we choked back for the sake of serving the others. He is in the spaces we cannot fill in our shock, in the friend who comes to the door with food, in the ache of everyone who gives their condolences, and in the gratitude that fills us, subtly balancing the unspeakable sorrow.
Prayer must, in these circumstances, become accompaniment and service and an unspoken trust. We do not know how to pray as we ought, and grief makes this very clear. We can only keep glancing upward, wondering if it will begin to make sense, trusting that God is doing something perfect, even here as we watch each other go through the stages of grief, bearing with one another, encouraging one another, supporting one another. Prayer is persevering and not giving up, doing the next right thing when it seems we can do nothing.
For my part, as Gram Gram, I found myself as the one protecting Jane’s little sister from the wrenching grief of her parents, so that they had some space to weep freely. And is the Lord not also in this shielding of the innocent, and making what is incomprehensible somehow accessible to her little wounded heart and mind? He is, and it was palpable.
When this little one asked me finally, “Where is Jane?” I could only say, “Jane is with Jesus.”
She pointed to the clouds. “Up there?”
“Yes, up there. And right here,” I said, pointing to her heart.
“Jane is in my heart. With Jesus.”
A child’s words often hold the best prayer.
Kathryn is married to Robert, mother of seven, grandmother to fourteen, and a Secular Discalced Carmelite. She has worked as a teacher, headmistress, catechist, Pastoral Associate, and DRE, and as a writer and voice talent for Catholic radio. Currently, she serves the Church by writing and speaking, collaborating with parishes and ministries to help others encounter Christ and engage their faith. Her writing can be found at kathryntherese.com.
