mgpcpastor's blog

This content of this post was published today in our local paper, The Border Watch.

What a privilege it was to witness the dedication of the Children’s Memorial at the Old Mount Gambier Cemetery. The cool and rainy conditions mirrored the sombre and reflective mood of those who gathered around the area. Removed from the noise and activity of our city streets, high at the top of the main drive, the memorial glimpses out over our town, a place of tranquility in a world of care.
The culmination of a long process of consideration and preparation, the memorial seeks to provide a place where deceased children can be remembered. In past generations children who died may not have been buried in marked graves, and some still-born or unborn babies who died may have had no graves at all. Our current generation now recognises that the loss of a child should be recognised and mourned in order for the lives of those who remain to continue in a healthy fashion.
Couples and families suffer this loss, often in silence and isolation. At the time when it happens everyone can offer support, but those who come into their lives later only find out if and when they’re told. Like when you see a photo, or ask how many children they have, or gather around a Children’s Memorial. You wonder if you’ll see someone you know, and why they need to be there.
The death of a child strikes us differently than the death of adult friends and loved ones. When an adult dies, even abruptly, there is an opportunity to appreciate the achievement and legacy of their lives and the blessings which their presence was to us. When a child dies we bury with them our senses of what their lives may have been, of what we had thought we might impart to them, our hopes to give and receive love.
To simply try and pretend that reality does not exist, or to encourage parents that they can ‘try again’ or ‘have another’ misses the reality that any other children they may have are not ‘replacements’ for the life that’s lost. That absence will always be there, a part of the texture of their lives.
I have personally found encouragement in the Old Testament book of Job. For those who do not know the story, Job had ten children who died in calamitous circumstances. He also endured other losses of health and possessions. At the end of the story we’re told that Job received a double return of all his wealth and ten more children. You might wonder why he didn’t have double the original number of children (apart from concern for his poor wife). Well, implicit in the Bible story is that his first ten children still existed, in another place and condition, and that Job, trusting in God, would be united with them again in the passage of time.
I wish no-one would ever have the need for a Children’s Memorial, but I, for one, am grateful that such a place exists in our city for those who need it.