Journal Content
Grief and Grace

 A story of loss and life

By Lynn Nicholas

 

Aryana’s mother died when she was born, plunging us into shock, pain and grief.  Karen lying in the intensive care unit, the new born Aryana on her chest, Karen connected to life only by a respirator, Karen an illusion of life.  Karen with her toe nails painted red.  Karen with her ultimate Frisbee friends singing to her, even though she can’t hear.  Karen surrounded by flowers as Father Leo administers last rites. 

 

Brian, his body shivering with loss, numb with pain, insensitive with disbelief.  Karen’s three sisters, dressed in black, their black hair pulled back silhouetting their white skin and stark features, the three of them carrying the gifts to the altar, the bread and the wine.  Karen present only in a  porcelain urn, next to a bouquet of white roses, Aryana in Brian’s arms.   Amazing grace how sweet the sound echoes through the cathedral.

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Now our lives are graced with a 4-year-old, holding up four fingers to signify her age, the index finger she can’t quite straighten yet.  Aryana in awe at a buck sauntering across the backyard through the snow eating a shrub.  Aryana watching each bird that comes to the feeder, wanting to know its name, trying to find it in Roger Tory Peterson. Aryana floating the Big Horn, astonished by a trout on the end of Wally’s fly line, cautiously reaching out one finger to feel its iridescent skin.  Aryana running up the stairs calling, “Daddy, Grandma, Wally shot seven ducks.  Come see them.” 

 

Aryana kneeling at the communion rail, holding out her small hands for a wafer.  Aryana sneaking to the end of the pew to get as close as possible to the recessing choir, Father Emil extending her a high-five, an orange crayon abandoned under the pew in front of us.

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It is Easter.  Bouquets of lilies festoon the altar.  A Chanticleer pear tree blooms in front of the rose window.  Little girls ring around the baptismal font.  Aryana holds out her 5-year-old hands, each filled with chocolate mints she filched from the church pantry.  She offers them to her Sunday school classmates, Rowen and Sophia G., they in their pastel party dresses, Aryana in her batman shirt, her favorite cheetah pants and shoes that light up every time she takes a step. 

 

Father Emil lavishly vested in pale peach holds an infant, spotless in a white gown, over the font.  With each handful of water he pours over the child’s head, he says:  “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and mark you as Christ’s own forever.”

 

         And death shall have no dominion.  And death shall have no dominion.