A Balm in Gilead

I can relate to the families who will have to face Christmas without their dear children, although losing a child at any time is unbearable.  I remember when my parents lost my younger brother just a few days after Christmas when I was 13 years old.  Roy was nine when the accident occured that will be forever emblazoned on my memory.  It was Christmas vacation from school and most of us were gathered around our new Christmas-present television set, a rarity in the early fifties.

Suddenly someone screamed as we caught sight of Roy Wayne running past the window with blazing garments.  Pandemonium broke out as Daddy struggled to get the front door open, finally dashing to the back door where he caught my brother, throwing his heavy coat over him to smother out the flames.  It wasn't until later at the hospital that it was discovered how badly Daddy's hands were burned.

Somehow in the panic and confusion we learned that the smaller boys had built a fire in the backyard, found some gasoline and the unimaginable had happened when the fumes ignited and engulfed little Roy.  Although he was rushed the several miles to the hospital, his burns proved fatal and he died that night.  Heartbreakingly, it was told he had said, "I don't want to die."  I thought of that when one of the surviving children in yesterday's tragedy was reported as saying while hiding with his teacher, "I don't want to die!  I just want to have Christmas at home."

We were consumed in sadness and grief.  I remember a well-intentioned but misguided gesture I made when we heard our parents were coming  home from the hospital without Roy.  Hoping to comfort her, I put the  paper-plate Christmas gift my little brother made where my mother could see it when she walked in the door.  Instead, she collapsed with grief and someone hastily put it away.  His cowboy guns and other Christmas toys were put away along with a partially-burned little boy shoe, kept in their things until their deaths a lifetime later.

Thankfully, a pastor reached out to our unchurched family.  There we found God's comfort, and warmth and friendship that helped us get through our ordeal, although our family was changed from then on.  My older brothers went away to the military, we moved, and I met a special boy at church I would marry several years later.     

I still can't bear to dwell on these memories, but when I heard the tragic news yesterday the same grief surfaced that I had felt so long ago.  As a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother now, I have a heart for children.  Especially at Christmas.