Tuesday, January 30, 2007 at 2:02am
Within calamity, providence often resides
Column: Life at First Sight
Not long ago, I received news from two different families that unimaginable tragedy had struck them both. Their stories have stayed with me, not so much because of their pain and sadness, but because of the sense of wonder each provoked, a reminder that everything that happens always has larger ramifications than what we see on the surface, or what we imagine.
A friend's daughter lost her husband in a single-car accident on a country road late at night as he was driving home from work. Their family was in the process of relocating to another state, and the husband was finishing up a few details before joining his wife and children in their new home. Then, in a heartbeat, the wife was a widow who had to fly north for a funeral and must now raise three children without their father.
In the days of deep shock that followed, my friend's one focus was to help her daughter feel the husband's presence close to her. My friend has already experienced depths of grief herself, and in her strong faith knew that believing in a loved one's presence would be a lifeline for her daughter in the days to come.
As they lived through the funeral and the anguished hours when, together, they went through the few belongings he'd kept with him after the family moved, she says that there were countless little evidences of his nearness. These felt like "small visits from him," she said, whether a card he'd written to his family but hadn't had time to mail, or the dozen times in those days when they couldn't figure out what to do next and the answer would just seem to appear.
When it came time to fly home, my friend's daughter was carrying some of her husband's belongings with her when she was faced with the same rigorous airport security most travelers now encounter. Suddenly, the strain of the previous days caused her to break down, unable to take another step. She was terrified that they wouldn't allow her to board the plane with the box she clutched like her most precious possession, and she collapsed in the face of the final, greater separation that this implied.
As officials took the box from her to gently examine and verify its contents, a trio of huge men appeared, all of them security personnel, and engulfed her in an embrace, essentially catching her in their arms between them. Each, it turns out, had suffered a recent, unexpected loss — one, a wife; another, a brother; the third, a very close friend. They knew how she felt, how difficult this particular moment was for her. They came to her like family and surrounded her with their unhurried and empathetic support. It was, my friend says, exactly what her daughter's husband would have done, and it was, perhaps, his most important "visit" during the ordeal of those days.
When the daughter arrived home, she called her mother to share the story of what had happened at the airport and to say that she'd also learned something that was a big solace — that the body of her husband, long an advocate of organ donation, had benefited five people after his death.
Shortly after I heard this, we received an e-mail from a family member, and I knew when the subject line was simply her husband's name that the message held potentially grave news. She's also a young mother of three, and her husband, Will, has seen some very difficult duty in Iraq. We were all thankful when he came home; yet the prospect of his return to Iraq still loomed over his family.
The message described yet another accident that had occurred in the wee hours of the morning. Will, a paratrooper, had been at night-jump practice when another paratrooper above him had blocked out the wind to Will's parachute, causing it to collapse. As he was too close to the ground to pull his reserve chute, Will had had no choice but to get into position and prepare for landing. The lower part of his spine was crushed by the impact of the fall.
His wife received the call at about 3 a.m., around the time that other young wife had gotten her middle-of-the-night call. Will's wife had been waiting for him to get home so that they could embark on the two-week vacation their family had awaited for such a long and uncertain time. At this point, as I was reading the e-mail, I almost wondered whether I could continue.
She went on to say how thankful she is for friends who'll watch her children on a moment's notice and treat them like their own. And for the friends who unhesitatingly accompanied her to the hospital where, not knowing what was to come, she spent 11 very long hours in an ICU waiting room as Will underwent surgery. Although her message was necessarily abbreviated, she took a whole paragraph to express her gratitude about others' support, as though breathing this in again and remembering the comfort of it.
It turns out that, because someone who had died that day had donated his body to science, the surgeons were able to repair Will's spine. He's going to have a long recovery, and his jumping days are over, but he's going to walk, he's going to live — and he's home.
"My calamity is My providence," Baha'u'llah has written of the way in which greater forces work within all our lives. "Outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy. Hasten thereunto that thou mayest become an eternal light and an immortal spirit."
Now I don't honestly know whether it was the man from that first family whose body provided what Will needed. But the proximity of these two incidents and the parallels between them linger in my mind at a time when things could seem very dark, some days.
I hope we won't miss the rays of light — eternal light — that break through and offer the assurance that we are very connected to each other, supremely related. And that there's so much more going on than we can see. One of the brightest aspects of that light, like all those people who reached out to these two young wives, is what we have to offer to each other.
— — —
Phyllis Edgerly Ring, mother of two, is a writer and editor. Her current book project addresses how adults can recognize and nurture children's spiritual nature. She is a former program director at Green Acre Baha'i School in Eliot, Maine, and has been a member of the Baha'i Faith for more than 30 years. Email her at {email columns@bahai.us}columns@bahai.us{/email}. See the website of the Baha'is of the United States for more information. © copyright 2007 by Phyllis Edgerly Ring
A friend's daughter lost her husband in a single-car accident on a country road late at night as he was driving home from work. Their family was in the process of relocating to another state, and the husband was finishing up a few details before joining his wife and children in their new home. Then, in a heartbeat, the wife was a widow who had to fly north for a funeral and must now raise three children without their father.
In the days of deep shock that followed, my friend's one focus was to help her daughter feel the husband's presence close to her. My friend has already experienced depths of grief herself, and in her strong faith knew that believing in a loved one's presence would be a lifeline for her daughter in the days to come.
As they lived through the funeral and the anguished hours when, together, they went through the few belongings he'd kept with him after the family moved, she says that there were countless little evidences of his nearness. These felt like "small visits from him," she said, whether a card he'd written to his family but hadn't had time to mail, or the dozen times in those days when they couldn't figure out what to do next and the answer would just seem to appear.
When it came time to fly home, my friend's daughter was carrying some of her husband's belongings with her when she was faced with the same rigorous airport security most travelers now encounter. Suddenly, the strain of the previous days caused her to break down, unable to take another step. She was terrified that they wouldn't allow her to board the plane with the box she clutched like her most precious possession, and she collapsed in the face of the final, greater separation that this implied.
As officials took the box from her to gently examine and verify its contents, a trio of huge men appeared, all of them security personnel, and engulfed her in an embrace, essentially catching her in their arms between them. Each, it turns out, had suffered a recent, unexpected loss — one, a wife; another, a brother; the third, a very close friend. They knew how she felt, how difficult this particular moment was for her. They came to her like family and surrounded her with their unhurried and empathetic support. It was, my friend says, exactly what her daughter's husband would have done, and it was, perhaps, his most important "visit" during the ordeal of those days.
When the daughter arrived home, she called her mother to share the story of what had happened at the airport and to say that she'd also learned something that was a big solace — that the body of her husband, long an advocate of organ donation, had benefited five people after his death.
Shortly after I heard this, we received an e-mail from a family member, and I knew when the subject line was simply her husband's name that the message held potentially grave news. She's also a young mother of three, and her husband, Will, has seen some very difficult duty in Iraq. We were all thankful when he came home; yet the prospect of his return to Iraq still loomed over his family.
The message described yet another accident that had occurred in the wee hours of the morning. Will, a paratrooper, had been at night-jump practice when another paratrooper above him had blocked out the wind to Will's parachute, causing it to collapse. As he was too close to the ground to pull his reserve chute, Will had had no choice but to get into position and prepare for landing. The lower part of his spine was crushed by the impact of the fall.
His wife received the call at about 3 a.m., around the time that other young wife had gotten her middle-of-the-night call. Will's wife had been waiting for him to get home so that they could embark on the two-week vacation their family had awaited for such a long and uncertain time. At this point, as I was reading the e-mail, I almost wondered whether I could continue.
She went on to say how thankful she is for friends who'll watch her children on a moment's notice and treat them like their own. And for the friends who unhesitatingly accompanied her to the hospital where, not knowing what was to come, she spent 11 very long hours in an ICU waiting room as Will underwent surgery. Although her message was necessarily abbreviated, she took a whole paragraph to express her gratitude about others' support, as though breathing this in again and remembering the comfort of it.
It turns out that, because someone who had died that day had donated his body to science, the surgeons were able to repair Will's spine. He's going to have a long recovery, and his jumping days are over, but he's going to walk, he's going to live — and he's home.
"My calamity is My providence," Baha'u'llah has written of the way in which greater forces work within all our lives. "Outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy. Hasten thereunto that thou mayest become an eternal light and an immortal spirit."
Now I don't honestly know whether it was the man from that first family whose body provided what Will needed. But the proximity of these two incidents and the parallels between them linger in my mind at a time when things could seem very dark, some days.
I hope we won't miss the rays of light — eternal light — that break through and offer the assurance that we are very connected to each other, supremely related. And that there's so much more going on than we can see. One of the brightest aspects of that light, like all those people who reached out to these two young wives, is what we have to offer to each other.
— — —
Phyllis Edgerly Ring, mother of two, is a writer and editor. Her current book project addresses how adults can recognize and nurture children's spiritual nature. She is a former program director at Green Acre Baha'i School in Eliot, Maine, and has been a member of the Baha'i Faith for more than 30 years. Email her at {email columns@bahai.us}columns@bahai.us{/email}. See the website of the Baha'is of the United States for more information. © copyright 2007 by Phyllis Edgerly Ring