Something Has Happened

Something happened this weekend -- something so big it shakes me out of silence and verily compels me to type. I can't exactly name the thing, but it's something.

I'm still not even sure what happened, really, though I've endless repeated all the facts and raw details.

It's something very bad.

And, yet... here's my confusion, because it was also something, well, sometimes beautiful. And affecting, in the way that some things have the power to make you IMMEDIATELY a different person, right there on the spot, usually in the middle of something horrible and tragic and prayerful and God-covered.

I stood in the same place Jesus was standing this weekend, in the midst of something very bad happening.

It was not good. And yet, and yet...

My brother and sister-in-law had a baby on Friday, 3 1/2 months before he was due to be born. The baby lived and breathed and died on Sunday.

His name was John Caleb Barry, and he was wonderfully made. He had tiny fingernails and toenails, and two long, pretty feet. He wasn't as skinny as you might think at just 1 pound, 12 ounces. He had such nice, pink skin. Smooth. No hairs anywhere. That meant no eyelashes, though, as they weren't due to form until later. His eyes were fused shut; they never got a chance to open. He was about as long as a ruler and weighed less than 2 cans of soup.

Can you believe we live in a world where any mother would have to see her baby so almost -- so heartbreakingly almost and not quite -- complete? What the hell kind of world is this, anyway?

I guess I have an answer for that, since I asked. It's the "here below," where we live. It sure isn't Heaven. That's all I can say about why any baby ever has to be born at 25 weeks. Why any mother waits 12 hours to be put in a wheelchair, tethered to IV bags and monitors, for her first trip to see the plastic womb that sequesters her child from the rest of humanity. Why any dad must stand in sick rooms and waiting rooms and hallways for days, not sleeping or eating, losing even the ability to speak in a fog of prayers and hope against all the damage in the world.

It sucks. This place called Earth, where people suffer and life is not perfect. It just sucks.

But it's also the only place I've ever seen good happen. It's the only place I've ever been, so it's my only frame of reference for how people can show one another love. How God can be felt when He cannot be seen.

And it's the place I saw all manner of love reign down this weekend. Right here, below.

More later, as I have the time and space to process just how I feel. We're all pretty hurt, but I don't see us being broken.