At A Loss For Words

A death occurred recently. It wasn’t someone famous or someone in my circle of friends. In fact, it was someone I barely knew. I had only met this young girl once and it would have been four or so years ago. I had known her mother. She and I had the odd ‘lunch date’ several years before she and her significant other at the time started a family. We had been involved in a couple of the same volunteer groups and got along well. Lunches together were purely social and professional.
 
Then she moved away from the community and we lost touch. That seemed to be the norm before the internet and social media came around. About twenty years after losing touch we reconnected through social media. Neither of us was actively in contact by this point, but I’m sure she marveled at the changes that had happened in my life as much as I did with those in hers. Luckily we could ‘catch up’ by checking out each other’s profiles and photos.
 
I determined that she had a young daughter, who would have been in her mid-teens at this point. I also noted a change in significant others. Otherwise she looked just about exactly as I remembered her with the exception of a little graying. She probably noted the same with me with the exception of a lot more graying. One day she contacted me to say that she and her daughter were going to be passing through town and could we meet for a quick hello.
 
Long story, short…I took my wife Brenda along with me to meet this old acquaintance of mine as I had told her several stories after the two of us had reconnected online. We all got together downtown at an outdoor event and caught up quickly. It was great to see her again. It was also great to meet her daughter. It was at that point I realized that this was a special needs child and noted for the years that followed our meeting that the daughter was doing some amazing things.
 
One major accomplishment I recall was graduating high school. Pretty much everything else blended into the social media timeline with snippets of other peoples’ lives and everyday activities. Then a few mornings ago I saw a bright reddish/magenta box on my timeline that announced that the daughter was “unresponsive” and had been rushed to hospital. Panicked comments were posted by others. I was at a loss for words and posted that.
 
Hours later a post revealed that the “Angel had returned to Heaven.” I was stunned. I’m not sure why I had such a reaction to news about someone I barely knew but it did have an impact. I struggled for a long time trying to find the right thing to say and gave up more than once. Then God gave me the okay to just say how I felt so I posted that I was still at a loss for words and deeply saddened. I was not going to lie and say something just to be kind.
 
God does that with me all the time. He has given me many opportunities where I find myself pondering what to say instead of just blurting something to be heard. As I write this I feel a slight weight being lifted from my shoulders signalling that I must have done the right thing to admit that I had no words of wisdom or promises I couldn’t keep. Instead, God directly me to say what was going on inside of me to acknowledge the loss and what impact it was having on others.