Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [66]
I remembered when I was a young teenager and my middle-aged aunt died. It was so sad to see my grandmother so upset. When I had walked into her house, she put her hands on my thirteen-year-old shoulders. “It’s not right for any mother to have to bury her child,” she had sobbed to me. It wasn’t right . . . and my grandmother’s child was forty-three years old.
Now here I stood, greeting people while trying to reconcile the fact that my five-year-old daughter was lying in a casket not three feet from me. God, where were You? Where are You? my brain whirled. I don’t get it.
A couple of people actually told me they could sympathize with our grief because their dog or cat had been hit by a car.
Really?
There were also expressions of great encouragement. One card that helped Steven and me a lot came from Greg Laurie, our friend who is a pastor and evangelist in Southern California.
Greg wasn’t able to come to the visitation, but he wrote to encourage us that Maria was a far bigger part of our future than our past. We’d known her for a few years down here . . . but we would be spending eternity with her soon. The sad irony is that Greg would lose his own son in a terrible car accident just two months after Maria died.
At the visitation, I was in a daze, seeing people and scenes like it was a movie. I saw Amy Grant come in at the same time we did. I don’t remember words, just a big platter of cookies (for the children’s room) and her endearing Amy smile, full of compassion for our family. I was told later that she sat quietly in the back for a long time, alone, praying.
I saw our Show Hope partners from China, Robin and Joyce Hill. They had flown in from Beijing. I saw Jon Rivers, the “Countdown Magazine” radio host, and his wife Sherry. They’d adopted from China as a result of our story and had come up from Texas to be with us. I saw the staff of Show Hope. Teachers from Maria’s preschool. Friends from church, from our neighborhood, from everywhere.
We were overwhelmed by the outpouring of support. The line of friends went on and on . . . and finally, seeing how exhausted Steven and I were, Jim Houser and Dan Raines made the difficult decision to end the line. They invited everyone left in line into the sanctuary, and Steven spoke to them all at once, thanking them for their love and support, asking everyone to continue to pray for us as our names came to mind.
Meanwhile, Will was in a separate room where his buddies from school could come see him but he wouldn’t have to stand up in front and hear the comments, no matter how kind people thought they were being. It was an unusual, special time for these soon-to-be senior boys, and Will was actually able to encourage some of them. God was already using our son – and his brokenness – to minister to his friends.
It was very late when we left the church on Friday night. I was one of the last to leave. I deliberately walked from flower arrangement to flower arrangement by myself, reading the cards and thinking about the friends who had sent them.
One of Caleb’s and Will’s good buddies, Trevor, was right there as well, quietly loading arrangements to take to the house or the burial site or wherever.
Even in my sad daze, his humble help touched my heart.
On Saturday morning we went to the funeral home, where our extended family and close friends would gather for a private time with the casket open. We’d say goodbye to Maria, then have the memorial service in the afternoon, followed by a private burial.
I felt like I was on the outside looking in, more of an observer than a participant.
It seemed so random, walking toward a tiny white casket that held our beautiful flower girl. Friends