In following the news nothing is more terrible than learning of the death of a child. The antics of politicians, the opportunities we are missing as the oil bonanza beckons, the absurd but dangerous controversy manufactured by Venezuela – and a hundred other stories pale into insignificance compared with the premature death of a child in a road accident or through medical neglect or even, God forbid, parental cruelty. There have been too many cases recently.
After all, death means total, irretrievable and heartrending loss. Life will not come again. Even C.S. Lewis, that good Christian thinker, referred to death as “the slamming of the door in your face and the sound of bolting on the inside,” There is a chant sung by the Dinka tribe in the Sudan which says it beautifully but finally:
“The sun is born, and dies, and comes again
And the moon is born, and dies, and come again
And the stars are born, and die, and come again
And man is born, and dies, and does not come again.”
The sorrow of the death of anyone we love stays with us forever. To some extent, the passing of time heals but never entirely. I met a man, vigorous and not at all sentimental, and in the course of conversation he told me about his son who died very young forty years before. Even after all that time tears glistened in his eyes as he spoke to me.
