Saturday, January 30, 2010

Sorrow is the Sea

In "Lament for a Son," Nicholas Wolterstorff grieves the death of his son, Eric, who died in a mountain climbing accident. About his new life of living in this grief, Wolterstoff says,

“Something is over. In the deepest levels of my existence something is finished, done.…Especially in places where he and I were together this sense of something being over washes over me. It happens not so much as home, but other places. A moment in our lives together of special warmth and intimacy and vividness, a moment when I specially prized him, a moment of hope and expectancy and openness to the future: I remember the moment. But instead of lines of memory leading up to his life in the present, they all enter a place of cold inky blackness and never come out. The book slams shut. The story stops, it doesn’t finish. The future closes, the hopes get crushed. ..Sometimes I think that happiness is over for me. I look at photos of the past and immediately comes the thought; that’s when we were still happy. But I can still laugh, so I guess that isn’t quite it. Perhaps what’s over is happiness as the fundamental tone of my existence. Now sorrow is that. Sorrow is no longer the islands but the sea.” Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son, P. 46-47.

2 comments:

  1. good quote.

    i want to comment, but i sit here staring at this box trying to squeeze my thoughts into words and i can't.

    i'm still reading along. still praying. still here.

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  2. Over the course of the year I have followed your blog. Though I have not experienced the loss of a child, I do know what it is like to lose someone without warning. Here is what I know... sometimes it is hard to make sense of what seems senseless. Faith is what sustains us. And... people expect you to recover much sooner than it actually takes. Give yourself time... I believe it takes 3 years before you find complete joy on a daily basis. Before that you will experience set backs but it is all part of finding your new normal. Your faith will guide you... God Bless

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