Death of a Child Quickscan
How strange it is to know that she is at peace and all is well, and yet be so sorrowful!
Martin Luther (following the death of his daughter Lena)
Children aren't supposed to die. Old people, maybe, or the infirm. But children — they're supposed to run and play and giggle and live!
But we live in a world where accidents and leukemia and other forms of deadly violence wrench children from the arms of their loved ones and leave those arms empty and aching. Few crises so torment the emotions as the death of a child.
Cinda Warner Gorman, associate pastor at Fletcher Hills Presbyterian Church in El Cajon, California, tells of her experience:
The phone rang one evening. "This is Dr. Steele," the voice said. "I'm at the emergency room at Grossmont Hospital with the Meeker family. Jarrett hanged himself on a back yard swing this afternoon. They've pronounced him dead. We need you or Steve here."
Those brief, confusing words would mark the beginning of one of the most intense weeks of ministry I hope ever to experience. My husband, Steve, also a pastor, had already left for an evening meeting. That left me to find someone to watch our children before I dashed to the hospital.
The Meeker family recently had started attending our church, and Jarrett had participated in the boys' choir and Sunday school. But I was having difficulty putting names and faces together as I drove to the hospital. I came into their lives basically as a stranger. In the poorly ventilated hospital conference room that made us choose between suffocation and privacy, we began to share the difficult week and months ahead.
I listened in as the deputy coroner obtained the information for his report: Jarrett had come home from choir practice and was playing in the back yard ...
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