The Childlike spirit
Be Not Afraid The Childlike spirit
Chapter 6 The Childlike spirit
As adults, we often seek answers to life's riddles by trying to analyze events and causes. Sometimes this works; more often it doesn't. In matters of illness and death especially, it seems that there is always an element of mystery – something that leaves us in need of more than our own explanations. This is not true of children, however, who tend to possess a greater tolerance for mystery. Even if they tend to fret over what we adults might see as "little things," they are generally far more accepting of life as it unfolds, and are not so bogged down by doubts, questions, and worries over the future. They are also more matter-of-fact about the things that adults fuss over, exaggerate, or over-interpret.
Cassie Bernall, a Colorado teen whose death made headlines after the infamous Columbine High School massacre of April 1999, is a case in point. Confronted by two armed classmates in her high school library with the question, "Do you believe in God?" she
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bravely answered, "Yes," and was immediately shot. Within days, the international press was proclaiming her a latter-day martyr, and symbol of courage and conviction. Meanwhile those closest to her, while they
never belittled her bravery, maintained that she was really an average teen, with ordinary problems and imperfections and weaknesses. As a classmate told Cassie's mother afterward:
People can call Cassie a martyr, but they're off track
if they think she was this righteous, holy person, and
that all she did was read her Bible. Because she wasn't
like that. She was just as real as anybody else. With all
the publicity she's getting – the stories, the T-shirts,
the web sites, the buttons, the pins – I think she'd be
flipping out. She's probably up there in heaven rolling
her eyes at it all and going oh-my-gosh, because she'd
want to tell everyone who admires her so much that she
wasn't really so different from anybody else.
There's another reason Cassie might roll her eyes – her childlike faith, which would have surely left her baffled in the face of all the fuss over the meaning of her "martyrdom." As her mother, Misty, recalls:
Be Not Afraid The Childlike spirit
One day, a week or so before Cassie's death, we were
sitting at the kitchen table, talking, and got onto the
subject of death. I don't remember how. She said,
"Mom, I'm not afraid to die, because I'd be in heaven."
I told her I couldn't imagine her dying – that I couldn't
bear the thought of living without her. She replied, "But
Mom, you'd know I was in a better place. Wouldn't you
be happy for me?"
In retrospect, Cassie's frank statements about the afterlife seem uncanny. At the same time, they have reassured Misty as she continues to grapple with the loss of her only daughter: "But Mom, you'd know I was in a better place."
Mary, another mother who lost a child, found similar comfort in the thought that her son Pete was in God's hands. Pete, a five-year-old, died in a totally different setting – New York City, in the summer of 1960 – but his departure was no less sudden.
A happy, tow-headed little boy with blue eyes, Pete loved to play in the sandbox in front of his house with his cars and trucks. When his kindergarten class set off for the Bronx Zoo one August morning, Pete was high with excitement. He wore his new sneakers and best shirt. Little did anyone dream that it would be the last day of his life.
Be Not Afraid The Childlike spirit
About three in the afternoon, his mother took a call from Mt. Sinai Hospital: Pete had been admitted for what was presumed to be heat stroke. Mary was frantic: her husband, Wendell, was on business in Europe,
thousands of miles away, and she herself was two hours from the hospital. Driven by a neighbor, she left immediately for the city. On arriving at the front desk of the hospital, she was informed that her son had been put on the critical list. Why? How? What on earth had happened? She called my father, her pastor. Stunned, he spread the word throughout our congregation, and everyone who could gathered to rally for the little boy by praying for him.
Pete remained comatose, however, and his condition worsened. Nonplussed, the doctors did everything they could think of; an off-duty specialist even came in to see if there was anything she could do. But it was all in vain. At about ten in the evening, the end came. No one could believe it. Just that morning Pete had left home so full of life. Now he was gone, and his father, though on the way home, hadn't even arrived yet.
Only the next day did the picture unfold: while the children were watching a mother monkey with its baby, the teachers had noticed that Pete – with them only moments before – was missing. Beside themselves with worry, they had alerted zoo officials immediately and searched every imaginable place. Finally he was
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found, curled up, unconscious, on the back seat of the school van in the parking lot. How had he found his way among the cages, the crowds, the maze of city parking lots, to the van? And who else, if not his
guardian angel, could have led him there?
On the day after Pete's death, our neighborhood stood silent in a state of disbelief. Not only Mary and Wendell, but every parent and teacher in the community, was cut to the heart by the sudden turn of events. Not so the children, however. They were much more matter-of-fact. The day before, they had been watching the animals at the zoo; now they were discussing all the things Pete would see in his new home, heaven, and painted a large picture of an angel carrying him there amid stars, galaxies, clouds, and rainbows. They also remembered the songs Pete had liked, and sang them over and over.
Four decades later, Mary says that though time has numbed her pain, how and why Pete died is still a mystery to her. But that has not prevented her from accepting what happened. Like Pete's classmates, she has found peace by trusting in God: "I've learned to accept God's will, even if I can't comprehend it. A lifetime is too short to take in all that God wants to say when he calls a child to himself. Yet I believe he's always saying something through it."
Be Not Afraid The Childlike spirit
Several years ago another family I know lost a child – this time to cancer. Unlike Pete's death, Mark John's was not sudden; yet it, too, shows how the childlike spirit can overcome the morbid gloom we so often
associate with dying, and turn it into a redemptive experience. To quote from his parents' diary:
The doctors at Yale-New Haven proposed that Mark
John, who was then three, be transferred to a hospital
in New York City for rigorous chemotherapy along with
some other new treatment still at the experimental stage.
When we asked them how much it would help Mark
John, they could only say that at best it might prolong
his life two to eight months, and at the price of his
becoming deathly sick. When pressed, they reluctantly
admitted that he would suffer terribly; in fact, he could
die from the treatment itself…
We decided that we would rather have our child at
home, close to us, than in a hospital, even if he would
live a little longer. It was an agonizing decision, but we
knew that God alone has all our lives in his hand, and
especially the life of our little boy.
Daily Mark John became weaker and weaker. After
a few weeks our pastor suggested that we bring him to
a service where we could lay him into the arms of the
church and intercede for him. We knew Jesus could heal
him, but we also knew that he might want to have him
back…
Be Not Afraid The Childlike spirit
The service was very simple. Our pastor spoke about
how Jesus loves all the children of the world, and then
we prayed that God's will would be done, and that we
would be ready to accept it.
Easter had special meaning for us, thinking of
Jesus' suffering and deepest pain, his godforsakenness
and need for help, and then the resurrection and its
unbelievable promise to every believer. Mark John was
surely a believer. He believed like Jesus told us to – like
a child.
On Easter morning we took him on a long walk in his
wagon, and his mother talked to him about heaven and
the angels and Jesus. She told him he would soon go to
heaven, and that he should wait for us, and someday we
would all be together again. He listened and nodded and
sometimes said, "Yes." Later, when the rest of the family
joined them, he pulled his big sister down to him and
whispered joyfully, "Natalie, soon I'll get wings!"
Then Mark John lost his sight in one eye. He cried
when he realized it. We were in such a tension: Would
he be blind before Jesus came to take him? We longed so
much that he might be spared that ordeal.
Once when he was lying on our bed between us, he
asked us about the picture hanging on the wall opposite
our bed – a painting of the Good Shepherd leaning over
a cliff to rescue a lamb, with a bird of prey hovering over
it. We knew a bird of prey was hovering over our little
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child too, but he was so unaware, so trusting. He grew
thoughtful as he looked at the picture and asked us to
tell him about it. We told him that Jesus was the Good
Shepherd, and that we all are his lambs – also he. It
was remarkable how he listened intently and seemed to
understand…
By now he was eating hardly anything at all. He got
thinner and thinner, and we feared he would starve. We
wondered how long our other children could endure
to see him suffer so much, as this illness slowly but
terribly distorted and changed his dear face and body.
Yet somehow, love showed us the way. All the children
wanted to be with him. They accepted his suffering
completely…
One day when we bent over him as he lay in his little
wagon, he reached out his thin arms and cried pitifully,
"I can't see, I can't see!" We said, "When you are in
heaven – when your guardian angel comes and carries
you to the arms of Jesus – you will be able to see again."
But he could not be comforted. He asked, "When?
When?" and we said, "Soon." He argued and said "No,"
so I had to insist, "I promise." Then he grew calm.
A day or two later, when we said goodnight to Mark
John, he reached up and said, "I want to kiss you,
Mommy," and gave her a healthy kiss. He kissed his
mother first and then me. We were both so moved and
happy because he hadn't asked for a kiss like that for
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several days: his little head turned towards his Mommy
with his precious eyes that couldn't see any longer…
Often during the last days we talked with Mark John
and told him that he was a brave boy, that we were very,
very happy that he had come to us, and that he always
was a good boy. On two occasions he answered us very
emphatically, shaking his little head and saying, "No,
no." It distressed us. We didn't know what he meant,
but in retrospect we feel that maybe he just wanted to
remind us that he was also sometimes naughty, and that
he was sorry for it.
On the last day he vomited blood; our doctor turned
to us and said, "Soon." Then we sang a song that we had
sung many times during the last days: "We shall walk
through the valley of the shadow of death." When we
came to the refrain, "Jesus himself shall be our leader,"
Mark John said distinctly, "Yes, yes, yes."
Mark John was given incredible strength in his last
hours. Several times he said, "Up, up!" We asked him if
he wanted to go up to heaven, and he said, "Yes." At one
point we said, "Good-bye, Mark John," and he said, "Not
yet." That was about an hour before he was taken.
A little later, as we were bending over him, he
suddenly said, "Laugh!"
"What, Mark John?"
"Laugh!"
"But why should we laugh, darling?"
Be Not Afraid The Childlike spirit
"Because," was the short but emphatic answer. And
then, while we were still trying to grasp it, he repeated,
"Please, laugh!"
Then we said, "Good-bye, Mark John," and he said,
"Bye-bye." We told him we would see him again soon,
because for him in eternity it will be very soon. Then he
lifted both his arms and stretched them up and pointed
with both fingers toward heaven, and his eyes looked
and saw – his blind eyes that couldn't see any longer
on this earth, but already saw beyond our world – and
called out, "Not two! One!" He repeated this two or three
times. "Not two! One!" He saw two angels coming to
fetch him, and we had always told him only about one.
Then he turned toward his mother and said distinctly
and tenderly, "Mommy, Mommy." Then he said "Papa,
Papa." It was as if he wanted to unite us very closely.
And then, in that dear and characteristic way of his,
nodding his head, he said, "Mark John, Mark John." It
was as if he had heard Jesus calling his name, and was
repeating it. We had never heard him say his own name
like that before. We bent over him, and then two more
times he lifted up his arms and pointed to heaven with
those thin arms that had been too weak even to lift a cup
to his mouth for days.
Then, fighting for breath, he called out, "Mommy,
Mommy, Mommy, Mommy." Ellen talked to him softly
and reassuringly…He was still breathing heavily but we
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could not feel his little heart any more. And then came
the last precious breath and the agonizing sigh. Death
had taken his body, but his soul was victorious and free.
We called to our darling little boy, "Mark John, Mark
John!" But he was gone. Our doctor said, "It is all over
now. His soul is free and with God. He has no more
pain." We asked, "Are you really sure?" He replied, "I
am sure beyond doubt." It was between three and four
in the morning…
As we look back on that night, we can see now that
Mark John was slowly moving into another world.
He went trustingly, even happily. It was as if we were
standing before the gates to eternity, and we could take
him that far, but then we would have to leave him. He
would go in, and we would have to wait.