When Ricki was born I remembered a friend
of mine who had lost a baby with Down syndrome not too long before. I spoke
once with this friend about her experiences, and she mentioned that there had
been more than one case of people telling her "how relieved" she must
be. A second friend, whose 4 year old son died a few years later had similar
experiences.
Well, I guess that as a community we may
have come a long way, because I did NOT get such comments. However, in a few cases I expected that I
might get such a comment, and I pre-empted it with a few lines that I said
repeatedly during the "shiva":
I won't say it was always easy. But it was always good. Something
difficult is not necessarily bad. Everyone in the family, all of us, profited from
having Ricki in our lives. We became better people, more mature, better attuned
to the reality of what is important in life.
Yes, it
was good…..
2 comments:
What an excellent statement. That's been our experience as well.
During/after college, we knew a family who had a child who was born with severe disabilities. She died within the first three years of her life. They then had a second child. While they blamed the first's problem on complications from the birth; there was no question that the second child proved there was a genetic problem. She too was severely handicapped. At her funeral, also within the first three years, I remember her father standing up to a room FILLED with hundreds if not thousands of people and saying how grateful he was for his daughter's life and how she had enriched so many, brought so much love into this world. He asked us just to look around and see the impact she had made. No, there is no relief in Ricki's passing - and there shouldn't be. But you have a great attitude. Hashem blessed you with Ricki, trusted you with her beautiful and loving soul - and Hashem blessed Ricki with you and your family. It was good...it will be good. Thank you for posting so many of her pictures to Facebook. I smiled at so many of them and kept thinking what a rich life you gave her.
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