Remembering Them

I work in the death care industry.  I know, it doesn't sound pleasurable at all.  And some days, boy can it be tough.

I began working at a local monument company five years ago.  I absolutely love helping people.  When I first considered this position, I hardly hesitated about being sure if I could handle it.  I knew it would involve working closely with families and helping them choose and design a fitting memorial for their loved one.  I also knew that it would sometimes involve great heartache.

Great heartache.

But I also knew that God was putting me in a new challenge.  He knows my heart and put me right where he wanted.

Not every day is spent with families.  I also manage the office, so most days are spent in paperwork.

Often, I get older people who have lost their spouse as the customer. Most women will both sadly and proudly proclaim how long they were married.  Sixty and seventy years!  Mrs. H was just in yesterday and was a few weeks shy of her fifty-nineth anniversary.  Tears welled in her eyes as she told me that he was buried on her birthday. At those moments I fight the urge to climb over the table, grab ahold of them and hug them until, well forever.

The older men who have lost their wives are terribly sad.  They are like lost puppy dogs.  You can see their grief clearly on their face.  They will tell me about the void in their lives.  I've wanted to adopt many of them as my grandpa.

Lots of adult children come in to get a memorial for their parents.  Mom liked gardening, dad liked the outdoors.  Mom would've really like the pink granite.  Dad would never want to spend this kind of money. And we find something fitting for them.

I love hearing stories of the older generations.  Stories of escaping their birth country, time spent in one of the wars, raising a large family with little to nothing.  How they met.  Where they were married.  What they did for a living.  A lot of times, they stop and say, "Oh, I am probably boring you with all this..." and I gently tell them to please go on.  I am a good listener.

When all of the families I've just described leave, they are relieved to have it taken care, tell me how easy I made the process and even show a little excitement to see the memorial, which we set in the cemetery within a few months or so.

Its when parents come in who have lost a child that tears my heart out.

Tears my heart out.

I want to bolt out the door.

My heart beats a little harder. I have to remind myself to remain calm and professional, as much as possible.

I've shared a few tears with them.

Last fall I had a young couple who came in to purchase a small single heart marker for their sweet baby boy who was stillborn at full term.  He died on September 30th.  At the time, Josh and Krista were expecting little Jacob and their due date was that very same date.  I could hardly focus.  I ended up designing something very precious for them.  I was very troubled the rest of the day.  I didn't speak of it at all to anyone.

A few years ago, parents of a ten year old boy that they had just lost came in.  Alec was close to that age and I wanted to leave and get him from school.  Wrap my arms around him.  Because I could and they could not. I still remember that they had "Love Ya Bud" put on his marker.  It was so difficult to type those words on the design program.   I left with an extremely heavy heart that day.

This spring, we have been working with a mother whose eighteen year old son was killed in an automobile accident last fall.  His birthday was one year and three days after Matthew's.  Yesterday I called her in to have her view the proof of what we had designed for her son's marker.  A simple, but absolutely beautiful black slanted marker with his picture lasered on it, along with his name and dates in a beautiful script.  It truly is beautiful.  But I dreaded pulling it out of the file and passing it across the table when she came in.

She is a mother of four and he was her baby.

I choke back tears even as I write this.

She immediately gasped, had tears well up in her eyes and then exclaimed, "Oh, I love it!"

I gave her a minute to take it in and then we spoke for a few minutes on the horrible, terrifying tragedy of a mother losing her child.

We spoke on the joys of raising our children and never wanting to let them go.  That a mother should never have to experience that horrid pain of losing one of their precious children.

I thought about her all day after she left and again this morning.  As she lays her head on her pillow at night and as her eyes open in the morning, I am certain her baby boy is the last and first thing that she thinks about.

As we celebrate being a mother this Mother's Day, please take a moment and pray for Sandy and all of the mothers who will be suffering the reminder of one child missing at their table.

And hug your children even tighter today.