Lend Support For Those Who Have Lost their Child

Lend Support For Those Who Have Lost their Child

by Deacon Alex

Men are mortal. Death is a certainty everybody has to stare at face to face sooner or later. The life expectancy of this city is eighty plus. Thus, for senior citizens over eighty-five, every single day is already a bonus. Despite our advances in medical technologies, senior citizens do not generally desire longevity due to their physical frailties as well as loneliness. Imagine your relatives and friends are passing away one by one; your beloved ones as well as your soulmates are leaving you behind on earth … Living in such loneliness is unbearable for most of us. Still, in Chinese culture, funerals of octogenarians are “joyous funerals”!

On the other hand, funerals of youngsters and infants cause greater sorrows. The deceased possessed a lot of unfulfilled potentials extinguished by their untimely deaths. They could have broken a lot of new grounds in unsolved problems in mathematics, natural sciences and medical technologies etc. to leave behind a legacy beneficent to all humanity. They could have contributed to the prosperity, stability and a better governance of societies for the future generations. They could have helped build a more harmonious and peaceful world where liberty, equality and fraternity would be a reality ... It is pitiful to see that they no longer have the opportunity to share their sweetness and their joy with their (intended) spouses to weave their dreams. Together with their comrades, they could have set honourable exemplars for the younger generations who would come after them … Their untimely deaths turn all these eventualities to null.

Pity those white-haired seniors who have lost their inheritors. It took decades to groom capable successors and now outsiders would take over. Perhaps they don’t need our sympathy because they have already resigned to fate, knowing that their days are numbered and there is no hope to reclaim the loss. They have accepted and contained the loss. Pity the would-be retirees who have lost their young adult child who would have a promising future and be capable of providing his/her parents a secure retirement. It would have been too late to give birth to a second child to carry on the mission. There is no hope to reclaim the loss. Compared with the octogenarians, who are more painful? I guess the longer parents have spent their lives with their lost children, the more painful the loss will be, unless you have surrendered to fate! Pity the young couples who have lost their firstborn’s. But unlike the two categories of people mentioned before, their pains are proportionally less traumatic because they still have hope even though they are less capable to manage their pains and losses!

Indeed, hope is something which sustains us in painful times which are part and parcels of a genuine life. Without hope, life is extremely unbearable. Where can we place our hope, if not in God? The Psalter says it well, “Put no trust in princes, in children of Adam powerless to save. Who breathing his last, returns to the earth; that day all his planning comes to nothing” (Psalms 146:3-4). Yahweh is eternal and thus more trustworthy than mortals. Moreover, He is merciful. He too has lost His only begotten Son on the cross in order to save humanity. He knows far better than anybody the pains of losing a child and He saves!

Beloved brethren! God is our authentic hope. Others won’t last. In November, let us pray together with the Pope that all parents who mourn the loss of a son or daughter find support in their community, and may receive peace of heart from the Spirit of Consolation. Amen.
God bless!

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Photo Credit: euromedmonitor.org