Musings: Parenthood; Life; Death; Faith

Too many topics for one writing you say.  Today my friends are faced with the heart-breaking decision of “pulling the plug” on their beautiful 11-year old daughter, Sophia.  A week ago she was alive with a life full of promises.  Today she lies brain dead in a hospital bed and the so-called “magical three days”, when one waits for an inexplicable miracle, are drawing to a close.

I too have a daughter.  She was once 11 years old, and that 11-year old is still alive inside of her.  So I find myself inexorably drawn to thinking: what if it was me?  what if it was my 11-year old Melissa lying there, looking for all the world as though she were sleeping?  And my heart breaks for Omar and Monica as they face that terrible moment.

What mother, what father, can turn to the doctor and say “OK, switch off the machine”?  What mother , what father, will then not spend a lifetime wondering if things would have been different if they had waited one more day, one more hour, one more minute?

It is in moments like these that I am driven to my knees.  I am reminded that the God of my understanding willingly sacrificed his one and only Son to save mankind.  (John 3:16)  And I have to make that personal and remind myself that He did that to save me, because then it becomes very intimate and very meaningful.

I do not know what path Sophia’s soul and God worked out for her before she came into her human body.  And so I pray.  I pray that a miracle takes place for Sophia and her parents, and that a healing takes place – in whatever form that may be.  Then, in humility, I have to add on, “Thy will be done.”

For those of you out there who pray, please add your prayers to mine.  The power of prayer is formidable.  The family has also requested special intercessory  prayers to Blessed Kateri (the first American Indian woman to be Beatified in 1980).  Was it not just in my last posting that I used American Indian writings for my Shared Wisdom topic?  A sign, a small hope – perhaps.