Blessed are those Who Mourn

Six years ago, on June 1, 2012, I was spending the last night of my week-long mission trip to Haiti in the courtyard area of the center where we stayed. It had been a long, productive, tiring, and blessings filled trip. I was both ready to go and wanting to stay at the same time. A lot of good work had been done.

We were gathering together one last night to talk about what each team had accomplished that day throughout the village, and to pray, sing, read scripture, and rejoice over our time in the village of Neply before heading back to the States the next day.

There was a little time in between our coming together as a group, and the group leaders coming down to start our Bible study, and give us final instructions for the next day. I remember a girl I’d only met on the trip, asking to use my laptop to check her facebook. She has asked two other times earlier in the week. I was hesitant to hand it over, knowing the internet access was spotty, and our time was shot. But I allowed it anyway. When she was done, I went online to check mine. I mostly got onto Facebook as a means of checking in with my family since I was out of the country without my cell phone. I knew that as long as I posted online each night, they would know I was still okay. I couldn’t wait to tell them more about my second mission trip to the island, and share with them all of the pictures I’d taken.

Haiti was still in the recovery mode from the devastating earthquake that struck 2 1/2 years earlier. When I returned from that first trip in 2010, I shared lots of photos of the destruction and what that event had left behind. This trip I wanted to share pictures of the beautiful people, children, and places of Haiti. And to talk more about the work being done beyond the damage the earthquake had caused.

With my update posted, I moved on to the second reason I’d gone online that night. It was my sister’s birthday. She wasn’t one to hang out on Facebook very much, but since it was her birthday, I knew she’d be checking for messages. And even if it was late when she saw it, I knew she would. know that I didn’t forget. So after clicking on her page, before I could post my birthday message, I read her status update she’d posted earlier that day:

“Thank you for my birthday wishes. It has been a bittersweet birthday, as my brother (####) died this morning.”

I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing, so I read it again, and again. My brother had passed away, and no one called me. My mind said, well if no one called, maybe it’s not true. Maybe what I’m reading is wrong. I mean, it couldn’t be a joke. No good person would kid around with news like that? What other reason could there be for my family not calling and telling me my brother, less than 18 months older than me, had died?

I was confused, but I knew social media wasn’t the platform to get answers. So I borrowed a friend’s cell phone. The scenario was playing out all too familiar again. There I was, outside the country, no international cell phone with me. And another family member had passed. I knew I had left the Directors’ contact phone numbers with my sisters, so that made the Facebook message even more confusing.

The phone rang. My sister answered. At first, she didn’t seem surprised to hear from me. But when I went right into the purpose of my call, and asked her if what I read online was true, it was only then that she realized what had happened. The family had chosen not to call and tell me what happened until I returned to the US. But she had chosen to post it online, not thinking there was ever a chance I’d be on social media the night before I left. But I was.

And that is how I learned of my brother’s passing.

But there was so much more to our story. Mine. My brother’s. My family. And now, there was no time left to get any answers; to resolve conflicts, to ask the hard questions and try to come to some type of mutual resolution on the issues. There was no more time on the clock to make amends; to ask why, or to…forgive.

I guess you could say that in addition to the grief over the loss of my brother, I had to also grieve the loss of the opportunity for our relationship to be repaired. There was no going back or moving forward. Only standing still in the moment…that moment when everything stopped exactly where it was. And there would be no tomorrows to try again.

No one really talks about that; the grieving process over never having a tomorrow to pick up the pieces and at least try to fit them back together again.