When I asked my family to send me a memory or tribute to commemorate Hart's 10th birthday, I didn't realized how difficult it would be to read them. (Actually, I didn't even think about that part!) While trying to articulate so much emotion: love, loss, joy and heartache through writing is an enormous challenge- reading them was quite daunting as well. Words cannot always adequately convey the fullness of the emotion behind them, but reading the words of my family, I was overwhelmed in the most magnificent way. I started to read my sister's eloquent tribute so many times that I've lost count, it was too "big" to get through. But I finally made it through today and all I have to say is, SISTERS are the BEST!
Beautiful HeARTbreak. It is really the only way I can describe it. The joy of Hart's birth, the overcoming of so many odds for him to even get here, to live long enough to be born. The fact that he was able to be with us for 24 days was miraculous and crushing. He was here and gone, but left an indelible mark on every life he touched. It was awful and beautiful. It was terrible and glorious. He took us to a thin place. The place where heaven and earth are so close they touch, and when we are still and open our hearts, we can see it.
I was living in Beijing when my sister found out the little boy she was carrying had trisomy 18. I felt so helpless being so far away. Trying to understand what the situation was, trying to comfort her, trying to navigate different people's reactions and interpretations of the same information. It was overwhelming and my heart ached for her. My sister is no stranger to life's bumps and bruises and she is gifted with a grace and faith in these times that is inspiring. She and her husband were able to cling to each other and provide a stable foundation for her five children to navigate.
When Hart was born, they were joyful, fully loving even though they knew that he wouldn't be here long. They lived out of a space of openness and gratitude, not mourning. From a place of infinite...the more love you give, the more love there is. Remarkable, especially because in this kind of situation it would be easy to close your heart, protect yourself, blame God or anyone else in your path and become hard and bitter. It would be easy, understandable even, to do this. Instead they opened their hearts more and leaned in closer.
I was able to come back for his memorial service. It was sad, yet it was a celebration. It is difficult to describe the feeling in the sanctuary. There was a tangible feeling of holiness. You could feel it in the air, in your bones and in your soul. It filled every space. The affirmation that there is so much more, it is all so much bigger than we dare to imagine.
Hart called us to transformation, to open our hearts and lay the old ways aside. My heart felt broken, cracked wide open. By God's grace, this precious baby showed us that we could stop spending our lives trying to patch up the cracks and crevices of our broken hearts because the cracks are where the light gets in. By focusing all our efforts on crack repair and management, we miss the light show completely. In his brief life, Hart showed us that it is going to be okay, that we are loved and cherished and when we focus on that, all the rest falls away. All that remains is love. Hart taught me in the strictest of terms, that life is too short to waste it on anything that is not love.
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