“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou
art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4 KJV)
The curtain over my mind opened just a little, letting in the searing light of reality. The light

painfully pierced the darkest corners that were not yet ready to accept it. I was grateful
when the curtain closed again. Every once in awhile, over several months, this would
happen, each time remaining open a little bit longer.

I remembered when I was pregnant that I had false labor weeks before the actual onset.
The contractions gradually increased in length and duration, developing a higher and
higher tolerance level of pain. I knew that my mind was trying to help me reach the
acceptance of every parent’s worst fear: the loss of a child.

I was allowed 21 years with my first son, Kevin. Many times as I remembered his life, I
blamed myself for things I should have said or done differently. No other event pulled me
harder or humbled me more than his death. Those first few weeks after he was gone, I
was so numb that that I felt nothing–no emotion at all, neither high nor low, neither happy nor sad. I just watched things happening around me.

I still had a younger daughter and a younger son at home. My oldest daughter was away
at college. I knew I had to focus on helping these three to cope with the loss of their
brother. I encouraged us to talk about Kevin–anything that they wanted to talk about,
whether memories, or feelings that had to have a name and be looked at directly. I quit my
job that summer in order to be at home with them.

Looking into the face of each angel who came into my life, I sang softly, “Sleep my child
and peace attend thee, all through the night.” The words of this old lullaby soothed my
own being as I repeated, “Guardian angesls God will send thee, all through the night.”
Watching each new baby sleep, I wondered what life would hold, what roads would have
to be walked. Would I be able to give the guidance needed?

I prayed often, “God , watch over and keep this little one in Your hands. Guide his
footsteps. Give me the wisdom and strength to know what to say and do. And please,
Lord, undo the mistkaes that I make. Make right what goes wrong.” I felt such inadequacy
for such an awesome responsibility.

The Bible says to “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not
depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6 KJV). I prayed every day for each one in my family: “Lord
place a hedge of protection around them. Keep them safe from harm and evil. Guide their
teachers in giving the children’s lessons today, and help my children to learn and
understand the things they need to know.”

Sometimes there were nights when bad dreams would come. One would wake up crying,
and I would bring a drink of water and talk awhile and say a prayer. “Do you know what to
do when you are afraid, when you wake up from a scary dream?” I asked the the wide,
dark eyes beginning to glisten with tears. The perplexed shaking of a small head would be
followed by a look of incredulity as I answered, “You sing.”
“Sing?”
“Yes. Sing songs of praise to the Lord for His goodness. Sing the Lord’s Prayer. A song
is like a prayer. God hears you and the devil runs away. No more bad dreams,” So we
sang together, and soon went peacefully back to sleep.

Of the four children, Kevin came with special needs and special gifts. His above average
intelligence was accompanied by dyslexia and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder). Experts considered everything “borderline,” and his problems weren’t
recognized and tested for until he reached the third grade. By then, they were interfering
with his school and personal relationships. He obtained the services of Special Ed and the
Gifted Program at the same time. He had inherited his dad’s photographic memory, which
helped him through a lot of exams when he hadn’t turned in the homework.

When school started in the Fall of the year that Kevin passed away, I started a new job. I
became a teacher’s aide in a Special Education classroom at the middle school. Helping
those children was very therapeutic for me. It gave me the outlet I needed as I worked
through my grief. I also learned a lot about my son.

The teacher I helped bubbled with the energy and vitality of the young. I didn’t have to talk much–she did most of it. She was not married yet and had no children, so she did not
mind when I shared “Kevin stories” of his escapades growing up. I had discovered that
talking to other parents about my grief generally made them uncomfortable. They did not
know what to say, and of course, no parent wants to think about ever having to go through
such a thing. I loved working with these children so much that I continued for many more
years.

We went through some extremely tense years in our family. My husband is Muslim,from
Bangladesh. Getting married was a very risky thing to do and guaranteed more problems
than not. The clash between two cultures created rocky ground. Our expectations and
methods of working through issues differed greatly, although the goals we wanted for our
family were similar. Crossing cultures is difficult enough, but differing religious beliefs
make the going a whole lot tougher.

When we married, my husband was not following any religion, and I thought that our love
and respect for each other would help us over the rough places to find common ground. It
does not work that way when the basic concepts of marriage and family have completely
different expectations for the roles of each member.

More than any other factor in my life, my husband has kept me on my knees in prayer.
The reality of my faith has been pushed to the test such that even Muslim friends testified
that only God could have done the things that were done.

A time came when we separated for a year. How do you explain to a young child when he
looks into your eyes and tells you, “Mommy, I need two parents, not just one?” It breaks
your heart. That separation shook the foundations of our childrens’ security for a long time
afterward.
I tried to reassure them many times that I would not abandon them, that Dad and Mom
needed to work through some problems. It was not any fault of theirs. Both of us still
loved them. Their Dad would always be their Dad, and their Mom would always be their
Mom.
It was difficult for my husband to talk about his son’s passing. When he did, he was
sometimes lashing out, blaming others, including me. There were a lot of questions about
the events surrounding the accident. It took awhile to make sense of everything. Many
stories were going around exaggerating the incident. Young people all over town were
upset. Kevin had many friends.

I call part of the grieving process “the broken record.” Everything leading up to the
accident, and a little while afterwards played over and over and over again in my mind. It
became impossible to focus on the mundane things of daily existence; it was a struggle to
process, resolve, and finally accept the reality.

Kevin had left the house about 4:00 A.M. with his girlfriend and met up with three other
friends. They drove about an hour and a half out of town, pulling off the road at a large
bend. Kevin then walked into the road in the pre-dawn light as a semi-tractor trailor rig
came barreling around the curve. The skid marks were close to a hundred feet long. To
try to go around him would have put the truck into the path of oncoming traffic. Four hours

later, someone from the sheriff’s department knocked on my door as I was getting ready to
go to work.

One year before, I worked part-time for an agency doing housework and giving personal
care to the elderly. As I was driving to an assigned client’s house one day, my mind
wandered in and out of many things. This day, one thought kept interrupting and pressing
in. “What if one of your children was taken home? What would you do? Would you be
angry with Me?”

Finally I could take it no more. I broke into deep sobs, hardly able to see the road. I
answered, “Lord, it would devastate me more than anything I know; but if You had to take
one of them, there would be a good reason why. It would hurt like crazy, but no, I would
not be mad at You.”

I remembered this event sometime later and thought about it a lot. God found it necessary
to address the possibility early on, partly for my preparation, but I think also because my
relationship with Him is very important to Him. “He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (II Peter 3:9 KJV) He did not want me to turn my back on Him in anger and resentment. I realized that life on this earth is temporal for all of us.

Eventually I wanted to make it to Heaven, too. It’s a myth that most couples will pull together when a child dies and have a much stronger relationship. That can and should happen, but in a large majority of cases, divorce will follow. There has to be a solid foundation to begin with. Sensitivity and support must be shared. Each spouse must be allowed to grieve in his or her own way.

Being with others who have shared a similar crisis or loss is a great support. In the
months that followed, I met several people who, in sharing their experiences, encouraged
me. In turn, I was also able to comfort others.

One evening, I talked at length with a friend who had lost her daughter. As we compared
experiences and feelings, I suddenly realized that my husband was sitting close by and
listening to every word. Not only was I giving expression to her feelings, but also to his.
It can be very hard to say how you feel, or know what to call these feelings. I discovered
that even though the circumstances differ, the emotional process is basically the same.
The tears welled up in his eyes, and I saw a release in him.

We had reached an agreement in our family. I told the kids that Dad and Mom both
believed in God, but in different ways. “Your relationship with HIm is between you and
God alone, not between you and us and God. You will need to do your own searching and
questioning–He doesn’t mind being questioned–and find your own relationship with Him.”

So they went to church with me one weekend and to the mosque with their Dad the next. I
wanted them to see an alive God, real and loving and caring. That requires coming to Him
the way HE provided. Being good, being religious, or being charitable isn’t the way, even
though these things are good and commendable.

One evening at church, we had a visiting preacher. He delivered a good message about
needing Jesus in our lives. Every so often as he spoke, he would seem overcome with
emotion and his voice would quiver. After the service everyone got up and left except
Kevin. He remained there, pale and somewhat shaken.
“Did you seee it?” he asked.
“See what?”
“The Light.”
“What Light?”
“It was moving around the minister. Sometimes it would be on his shoulder. Then his
voice would change.”
“What happened to It?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It just left.”
“Left how? Through a door or window?”
“No. It was just gone.”
I attempted to explain to him about God’s Spirit, the annointing power on a minister, and
that not everyone can see Him when He is present. Then I brought in the pastor and the
visiting preacher who also tried to explain to a ten-year-old boy what the Bible says. Kevin
told me later that for some time after that, whenever he saw car lights aproaching in the
dark, it would shake him up.

He had been baptized at age seven. It’s a bit young, but young hearts are tender. He
expressed a desire, and I was hesitant to stand in the way. Now, however, Kevin was
asking to be baptized again. This time he understood that it was a public confession of
faith in Jesus Christ, a symbol of repentance, of inward cleansing, of dying to oneself and
of living to God.

The first year is always hardest to get through when a family member passes on. Holidays
and birthdays are difficult. Life goes on, but it starts over as well. New memories are
made. Siblings have a rough time. Our second daughter had been an A and B student.
She failed every subject in school that year. However, she found a friend who had also
lost a brother, and they became inseparable. Our younger son did not talk much, but he
wrote a tribute to his brother and dedicated it to me when his class was learning how to
make books.

I drove 75 miles every month to the cemetery for awhile. I cleaned, planted flowers, and
walked among the tombstones, appreciating the stillness. I spoke often with the Lord. The
hope that took away the cutting edge of my pain was in knowing that separation is only
temporary. I will see Kevin again.

I came to know the Lord first as a teenager. My immediate family never went to church at
that time, although my grandparents did. My mother was especially antagonistic, insisting
that I was gullible and being brainwashed. Several years later she had her own
experience with the Lord, and so did my Dad before he passed on. However, at the time, I
wanted to know whether God was real. If He was, then I didn’t just want to know about
Him, I wanted to know Him personally–as friend to Friend. When He came to me, It was a Light coming on in a dark place. Everything around me seemed to glow. The glass box
that I lived in within my mind shattered into a thousand pieces. People around me saw the
difference and asked questions.

The journey has not been an easy one. I have fallen down many, many times and gotten
bruised, but He promised to be with me always, “even unto the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20 KJV)

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5 KJV)