Earlier this week, Alice lost her son. Plucked out of this time and this space much too soon, he left this world in
such a hurry to get to Heaven that he didn’t stop to say goodbye. In the wake of his departure, he left behind his mother, his wife and his brother. A trio of despair, all trying to make sense of the senseless.
Yesterday, as I was cleaning up the church hall, Alice appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
“Have you seen a black glove?” she asked somewhat urgently. As always, Alice’s hair was perfectly coiffed, her attire classically tailored, her posture upright.
Caught unawares both by her presence and by her inquiry, I quickly began searching. What was she doing here, I thought to myself. Her son was buried but two days ago, surely she should be at home with her head under the covers, being doted on by angels both of the human and divine variety.
Fumbling with my own emotions, I prompted her with somewhat inane questions (“Where did you last have it? You say it was black? Have you checked the main church?”) I beckoned the children in the room to start looking, too. I caught the contagion of desperation that was palpable in her hunt- we weren’t really looking for a missing black glove that disappeared at the funeral. We were looking for normalcy, for the other half of a missing whole. We were searching to right that which was wrong, to rejoin that which was separated. To find the missing piece of an inexplicable jigsaw puzzle hidden purposefully by Death.
And there was a reason we weren’t looking on the sidewalk or in the cemetery, in the funeral home or in the car. We were purposefully searching the Church. Because surely, God would help us fix this problem. He would help us find what was lost. Because that’s what God does, right? He puts pieces back together. He wipes away feelings of confusion, separation, grief.
Wait, we’re looking for a glove. Right.
Under the pews, down the aisles, into the Narthex. No glove.
Around the sacristy, by the Baptismal font, near the Tabernacle. No glove.
I found myself frenzied far more than Alice. Where was it? Why didn’t God help us, help her? Why did He insist on presenting us with this ridiculous tiny mystery when we really just needed an easy answer. We just needed to find the goll dang glove!
Eventually, Alice gave up. She left with her traditional stoic resolve and an apology.
“Don’t worry, Molly. Maybe someone will find it later and turn it in.” I fought my instinct to grasp her arm in desperation and cry out, “No! We can do this. We will find it!”
As she walked away wearing deep sorrow on her shoulders, I willed the world beyond to produce that five-fingered black leather mitt, if only to retrieve a small piece of what Alice had lost in her life.
For I recognized in this lovely woman three familiar feelings: unfathomable suffering, a deep emptiness, and a quiet trust. Alice, a woman of faith, knows that God isn’t punishing her. She imagines that her son is enjoying the Star Wars Sagas in Heaven. She is confident that the Lord is beside her as she intentionally moves forward, one step at a time, knowing that she has no choice. She understands that Life does not bow to the grief-stricken.
But her heart seizes with each beat, swallowing the undesired truth that life will never be the same. Her path has been irrevocably altered, her joy irretrievably lost.
As Christians, we understand that there is a future beyond our human sight. We accept that there are mysteries that will forever confound our sapient senses.
We study suffering and acknowledge that it is part of human existence. We know that there are degrees to pain, levels of affliction, mechanisms of coping.
But as people- people of God or people of an alternative energy- we still wish things could be, well, different.
And so on a cold and dreary Saturday, Alice walked away down the snow laden path and I knelt in the center of the Church reminding myself that God’s Hand manifests itself in many forms.
Today, I just needed it be black, leather... and found.