I've posted a few times about Carla, my first internet friend to become a real-life friend. We connected in 2000, when she had three children and I had two, and as our families grew we shared ideas on keeping them healthy and holy and working a little and dealing with difficulties and running a household and all of the things that mothers talk about.
In early 2011 we were planning to meet up at the Behold conference. She sent me an email: "I have news to tell you when I see you!! And no, I'm not pregnant!" She had seen a little face on Reece's Rainbow. "That's my baby," said something deep in her heart. She shared it tentatively with her husband. Given some time to discern, he said, "Yes, that's our baby."
They raised money to finance an international adoption. They pushed paper and cleared hurdles. They brought Henry home in September of last year. What you need to know about Carla is that she always leaves you feeling like she's positively delighted to see you, like there's nothing she'd rather be doing than spending time with you. I can't tell you how much I love the fact that Henry came home from that grim orphanage to a mama who delighted in seeing him every single morning, who let him know that there was nothing she'd rather be doing than spending the day with him.
I was teaching about one of Henry's diagnoses in the spring and again in the fall, and Carla was gracious enough to Skype with my students in each semester. She was unflinching about the ugliness of orphanage care for children with disabilities, and she was clear about the difficulties Henry was facing because of his diagnosis, but she left my students with the certainty that she loved being Henry's mom. Student after student said to me, "Thank you for setting that up."
She is a joyful person, even when scary things are looming. Henry was going to Philadelphia for major and uncommon surgery. They landed in Philadelphia shortly before Hurricane Sandy did, but Carla made it sound like an adventure to be hunkered down while the wind was howling. They spent more than three weeks in the hospital and they were both elated to be home. A week later they were back in the local ER: Henry was hurting and feverish.
It was a raging infection, around the VEPTR rods and in his bloodstream. Carla stayed upbeat: they had the pain under control, they were working on the infection.
Henry died this afternoon.
Denial is a weird thing. There were some worrisome Facebook updates, and then silence. A post came through on our email list from a woman Carla's known most of her life: Henry was gone. My brain just flat rejected this piece of information: Shut UP. Get OUT. Not POSSIBLE.
I went to the Adoration chapel while I was waiting for CCD to end, and at first I couldn't even pray; I could only cry for my friend. When the words started coming they were not very spiritually mature words. I said, "Why did you do this to her when she is so brave and so loving and so joyful? Why did you go and break her heart? I DO NOT approve."
I realized I would not have approved of the crucifixion if I had been offered advance notice. Maybe my stamp of approval isn't all I imagine it to be.
The way that Carla and Paul loved Henry reminds me of the way that God loves us. I've been thinking about the way they came to him while he was imprisoned (with well-intentioned jailers, but imprisoned nonetheless) and said, "We've prepared a place for you." The way they had a hope for him, and a future for him. The way they offered him healing, one step at a time, and loved him through the painful parts of it. The way they gave him patience and tenderness after he had only known brusqueness. The way they made a home for him in a big boisterous family, full of noise and action and affection.
It reminds me of God's love too in its extravagance -- it chokes me up to think about how willingly they gave what they had for Henry, and trusted God to provide the rest. Henry's needs were pretty intense -- more so than they realized at the outset -- but Carla never seemed stressed about providing for them. "His will, his bill," she said once in a post.
"And that's IT?" I thought about saying to God. "All of that love and struggle and money and effort and now a heaping pile of heartbreak on top because it's OVER? Excuse me?"
But of course it's not over. I was trying to think of ways to get to the funeral, and thinking that it will probably be so packed full of people who love Carla and crew that it's not as if my personal presence will provide any solace, when I remembered the last time I went to a jam-packed funeral Mass in November. My friend Deanna's mother died seven years ago and I still think about her funeral all the time. I never met her mom but she is still inspiring me. This is how great our God is, that he can use death itself -- ugly, heartbreaking death -- to draw us toward heaven. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
If you are moved by Henry's story, please consider a donation to Reece's Rainbow. Doesn't every little boy like Henry need a mom like Carla?
Recent Comments