Remembering is a Way of Meeting

"Each time we embrace a memory we meet again with those we love, for the heart never forgets."

If someone were to ask me, "What was the saddest day of your life?," I would answer that question in a heartbeat, even though I have had many sad and many joyful days in the span of my seventy years.

The saddest day of my life was May 24th, 1969. That was the day we lost our first-born son, Harold Mark. It was preceded by the most joyful day of my life, the day he was born. Joy and sorrow, birth and death, so closely linked, so deeply experienced. "What is the meaning of it all?" I questioned sadly:

Blossom so white, so pure,

made to delight

with your lovely aroma and sight!

Why must you die

when you've barely started this life?

Harold Mark was born on a  cool dry-season day in Kinshasa, Zaire (now DR Congo), just outside the doctor's office, six weeks prematurely. We had one look at him just after he was born. Then he was whisked away to the nearby Catholic hospital and put into an incubator. Our hopes were high, but the next morning a nurse came with the words, "The sister was not able to save your baby." The saddest part about all of this is that I never saw him again. I never said good-bye. I never made closure.

Cut off too soon

from the root and the stem that bore you,

leaving it lonely and bare,

spilling its white sap-milk uselessly 

to the ground.

Our son's little grave was one of many fresh graves. Buried in this same cemetery were about sixty innocent young men, university students who had protested against the authorities and had been shot point blank. Every time we went to his gravesite, we were met by soldiers who looked at us with suspicion and asked us why we came there. I wondered if the mothers of these students were ever allowed to visit their graves.

Three months after our son's death, we moved to the provincial town of Kikwit. Friends of ours agreed to look after his grave.

We left DR Congo in 1984 and have not returned, but "the heart never forgets." Each time one of our three daughters left home, the sense of loss I experienced at the birth of our only son intensified. I knew I needed to make some sort of closure but I didn't know how.

It has taken a long time, but just recently the answer came to me and I acted on it. May 30th (my mother's birthday) dawned bright and sunny. On this day we remembered our son and our brother (who would be 45 years old had he lived) by planting a golden ash on our church property. Two of our daughters and their families as well as our care group and one of my sisters attended this ceremony. It was not a sad occasion, but a wonderful life-affirming time.

Our two strong sons-in-law and our oldest grandson helped our friend and care group member Edd lift the tree from the truck and brought cartloads of soil to pack around it.

The younger grandchildren sat around the tree and played happily, their bare feet digging into the moist rich soil. They were experiencing Harold Mark in their own way.

After we planted the tree, we had a short dedication service in which each of us had a part. We read the scriptures that were read at Harold Mark's graveside service so many years ago as well as a Bible passage that had become personally meaningful to us during that time. I also read a poem I had written; a sad little poem in which I questioned the meaning of this life-changing event:

Blossom, so white, so pure,

what were you meant to be?

Blossom, too soon you died.

The answer is lost to me.

Over the years I found that this life-shattering event could also be interpreted as life affirming and I could be at peace with it, but I needed something physical, something that I could touch and say, "This is in memory of someone who lived a very short life and might otherwise be forgotten." I don't want the event to be erased as if it never happened. Harold Mark is our son and part of our family and we want to remember that.

                    Together, our family vowed to remember:

                    At the rising of the sun and at its going down, we remember.

                    At the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we remember.

                    At the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring, we remember.

                    At the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer, we remember.

                    At the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of the autumn, we remember.

                    As long as we live, you too will live, for you are now a part of us.

                                                                                    -- Gates of Prayer [Reform Judaism Prayer Book]