Seth's Gift

Did you know that someone who doesn’t have a lot to offer can profoundly change the life of another? Let me tell you about Seth. To be honest, I didn't get to spend very much time with him; but since our brief rendezvous (as it were) my life has truly never been the same. Intriguingly, he was someone whom no one really knew much of anything about, who had never yet made his mark in the world. I think that’s part of what made the two of us so close.

The funny thing about the way he made a difference in my life was that he didn’t say a word. Come to think of it, maybe that was something profound in itself. He was one of God’s paradoxes: though he knew nothing, he taught me. Though he was helpless, he helped me. Through his simply being there, he taught me something new about love. This was his gift.

I didn’t know when he appeared on the stage of my life that I needed someone like him. I blinked several times in awe and then with instinctive tenderness curled on the couch together with him for a little talk. “Baby,” I called him (it seemed like the best nickname for such an unknown and yet unquestionably charming human), “Baby, hi! I love you!” And I laughed and cried, and rubbed my tummy as if I was hungry, but it wasn’t that.

This friend of mine didn’t enter the stage of my life with any fancy prizes or letters of accreditation; however, it was him who gave me a new title that changed me forever and yet testified to how little I actually know. A title of three letters: Mom.

I had so many plans and dreams for my relationship with this young friend of mine. I daydreamed, day after day, the joy of introducing him to the wonder of a rubber ball; the splash that water makes; the intrigue of books. I dreamed of hearing him talk to me, and watching him walk to me. I dreamed of watching him speak words of life and grace to a dark world, dropping rays of heaven-light wherever he went. I dreamed of him being a protector, a strong young man who would defend the helpless. He would use his strength in tender ways to care for the distressed...just like Jesus.

I learned from his presence that to become a mommy is to lose close to everything you used to know (even your own body) in return for a precious Someone Else. In return for the privilege of loving someone the world has never known, and in large has never yet loved.

I have asked myself many times: Why, oh why did I love him so fiercely? Why did I want to do everything in my power to protect him? Why did I think of him every single waking hour of every day? He didn't do anything for me, ever. He didn't choose to be close to me. He didn't do anything at all to try to attain to my love.

I think the answer to my questions is, look: he was mine. I was nourishing him every moment, my body sustaining his life. He was, with my every bite and breath, receiving the life of my body into himself, growing just as fast as a little man his size could grow.

Small though he was, his presence allowed me to learn something new of the love that God has for us as His children. He loves us first. He carries us. He has the heart of a fierce protector when it comes to our care or bad things touching us. He sustains us every moment. He cannot stop thinking about us, dreaming about the plans He has for our lives. He says, “I love you: you are MINE.” (See 1 John 3:1 and Isaiah 43:1) Oh, the tender simplicity of being perfectly helpless and perfectly loved!

One day, right smack in the middle of our delightful adventures together, I forever lost my special friend.
On that day, I started to learn what it’s like to let go. There in my arms, I watched him do just that...his hand open, relaxing. His lips moving like he had something to say as he bid the world farewell. My lips were moving as well, quivering and taut with unutterable heartache that filled me all the way up to the surface.

At the end of the day, pasted numbly under a green quilt, I bawled until my eyes felt like they were exploding. And then, lifting my arms weakly up towards the heights of heaven, I opened the palms of my own hands and willed myself to release my soul into a worship I’d never known before. Peace and anguish sat together, while my broken heart spilled love out of all the cracks.

When your heart has opened to love, and Love has created new living places in your heart, how can you ever be the same again? In an open heart there is ecstasy, and there is risk.

Today, it's three years since I said goodbye to my Seth. I wish that I could give him a gift today to celebrate his birthday. I long to watch him play, or hear him string cute sentences together from his sweet little mind. I long to see courage emerge from his adolescence, to see the beginnings of his mark being made on the world. I wish I could give him a gift that would make his face split into a grin which (unless I miss my guess) would look strikingly similar to the charming wideness of his Daddy’s.

Instead, I'm thinking about the gift that he was to me. Through him I came to understand worship in an entirely new sort of way. He gave me a gift of perspective, love, and beautiful grief.

He gave me the gift of a new understanding about the way God’s Kingdom works. For example; like him, I can do nothing without the sustaining life of my Creator. My Eternal Parent. Like he was, I am in a dark, confining womb-of-a-world. Sometimes it feels warm and cozy and other times it feels suffocating and deadly. He helplessly endured some of the awful pressure and pain of this life; and as I read the news, I feel keenly how helpless I am when faced with evil and darkness and danger. Yet, like he discovered, I will one day find this "womb" being replaced by the wonder of a world bright and new, a world that welcomes me to be at home forever!

Like him, I find that I can be helpless, yet loved. I can let go of whatever I have and have known, to open my arms and receive more than I can imagine. I can allow myself to be led gently in to a life more beautiful than what I dream of for myself.

I find it true that "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". (As said by Alfred Lord Tennyson.)

And someday, I'm expecting to go where he is and hear his voice calling to me, "Mom." Oh, I don't know what I will do then, but perhaps I will scoop him into my arms, or maybe he will scoop me into his; and a whole new adventure in enjoying the gift of our relationship will begin.


Written in memory of Seth Malakai born and went to heaven May 23, 2016.