Losing Andrew

*** This post is copied from my other Blog, but it's so significant to the journey I've been on these last two years that I wanted it to be here too. ***

Today has been the saddest day filled with the most grief I think I have ever experienced. And also the closest I've ever felt to God's own heart. My five year-old cousin (with whom I am very close) died very suddenly this morning. The pain I have felt all day is a tangible, soul wrenching, physical wave upon wave of emotion and feeling. There is no room for thought. To think now would be to steal something from the pure nature of this grieving for the absolutely most perfect picture of innocence and light I have ever seen in another human. There is no "God how could you do this" as there has been before. Nor is there numbness shoving all else away. No busy-ness could mask this; No words console it. All I can face right now is the solid chest of Christ to lean into and feel His arms wrap me up and hear Him say "I'm here". Along with feeling and allowing the emotional and physical responses God gives me, this is my prayer for myself and family:

"Eternal God, who sends consolation to all sorrowing hearts,
we turn to You for solace in this, our trying hour.
Though bowed in grief as our loved one departs from our midst to enter into peace of life eternal,
we reaffirm our faith in Your compassion and Your ever-present love.
May we bear our sorrow with trustful hearts,
and knowing You are near, may we not despair.
Into Your hands we commend the spirit of our beloved.
Body and soul are Yours, O God,
and in Your presence we cast off fear and are at peace.
'There is no death, what we call death
Is but surcease from strife;
They do not die who we call dead,
They go from life ... to Life.'"

Randall M. Falk
Rabbi Emeritus, The Temple