A Neighbor's Words

 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.  Ephesians 4:31-32

  My eyes were dry from days of crying.  My world had been shaken, turned upside down.  Everything I knew as normal was gone.  An out of control car on an icy road had crossed the median into our path.  My son was dead.  My husband was in a hospital bed.  The doctors’ words were, “He’s not stable,” and “Only time will tell.”

I had lost my son.  It was a real possibility that I would lose my husband.  I wondered how my grieving mind and body could nurture the unborn baby I carried.  How could I endure any more loss?

I struggled to focus on the conversation at the table.  My mother’s neighbor was speaking. She was a solemn lady who seldom smiled. She was telling the story of the loss of her son years ago.  I listened as intently as my grief-clouded mind would allow.  The neighbor locked her eyes with mine.  “You will never be happy again.”  Her words rang clearly above the din of the surrounding conversation.

I excused myself from the table and escaped to the nearest bedroom.  I collapsed into a chair.  My eyes, no longer dry, flooded with tears.  My grief was overwhelming.  The pain was searing—unlike anything I had ever known.  I wasn’t sure how to put one foot in front of the other, or how to take my next breath, but she just couldn’t be right.  Her words couldn’t be true. 

I pleaded with God that very moment.  I begged him to help me, to carry me.  I didn’t want to be bitter.  I didn’t want to be unhappy forever.  I didn’t want the neighbor’s words to ring true for me.

For a long time the memory of those words brought feelings of shock and anger.  How dare she say such a thing to me days after I buried my son.  I knew her to be an unhappy woman.  I did not want to be that way.  In the difficult days that followed, I remembered her words when I recognized feelings of bitterness starting to creep in.  I would pray for help to fight off those feelings and to focus on the things that were good.  God had given me a glimmer of hope in the form of the baby girl that was born about six months after the wreck.  She was my reason to go on, to put one foot in front of the other, my reason to smile and to laugh.  Two years later another promise of hope arrived with the birth of another baby girl who has the same dark hair and eyes as her brother.

The next few years were extremely hard.  Every holiday, every birthday, every celebration, and  every happy occasion was now accompanied by a deep sadness.  Many times I was tempted to be angry or  to feel cheated.  In those times the neighbor’s words echoed in my heart.  I was reminded that I could indeed be happy again, that I didn’t have to be bitter.  I was reminded of God’s promises to be Healer, Comforter, and Provider.

Now twenty years later, hindsight provides a clearer picture.  God used the words of my mom’s neighbor to teach me a lesson.  He used those words to illuminate a choice between two paths.  One path is bitterness and anger; the other is joy through the tears and the pain.  The pastor who preached my son’s funeral said of times like these, “These times can make you a bitter person, or a better person.  With God’s help I choose to be better.