A Shelter for Sharing Sorrow

A Shelter for Sharing Sorrow

           

            Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no

Man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”

             I learned that for myself one cold winter night several years ago.

            As I stepped out of the well-lit interior of the hospital far from my home, the blackness of the night enveloped me. Walking to my car I felt it seep into my already heavy heart. I had just spent the day with my five year old son and it had been one of pain for both of us.

            A year ago he had been full of life, and now he lay, sapped of strength. He was dying. I felt helpless and alone and wondered that dismal night if anyone cared.

            When I reached the Ronald McDonald House, a shelter for families of hospitalized children,  I noticed someone had left a light on for me. I made no noise as I went to my room. I knew others staying there were tired too, from the stress that comes from having a sick child. Thinking about them, I didn’t feel quite so alone.

            I fell across my bed, too exhausted to undress. I wanted to sleep, to forget for a while. But then it came, like it had so many other nights; that pressure in my chest, forcing me to sit up, gasping for air, robbing me of rest.

            My child was terminally ill and there wasn’t one thing I could do about it. It felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest and a huge boulder placed where it had been. The boulder began to press down on my lungs and I couldn’t breath.  I sat up, gasping and as always my first instinct was to run, anywhere, to get away from that suffocating pain.

            I got up, and went downstairs to the family room. I knew I wouldn’t waken anyone there, and maybe I could find something to do that would help me forget the pain, the fear and the darkness of the night.

            When I reached the door, I noticed a light in the corner and I heard what sounded like crying. I thought maybe I should leave, but the crying was a magnet that kept my feet grounded where I stood

            She looked up then and saw me and I knew I couldn’t turn my back and leave. I went over to where she was huddle. She was young, no more than twenty. “Can I do anything to help?” I asked. She looked at me with tears streaming down her face. “No, I don’t think so, no one can.”

            She was speaking my language, a language that comes from deep within the broken heart of the mother of a sick child.

            Because I too had said those words and knew the broken heart that spoke them, my tears began to flow too. It was then she knew, we were two of a kind and her words began to flow with her tears.

            She had just learned that her only child had cystic fibrosis. For a moment I forgot about leukemia. We sat for a long time. sharing our heartache and crying together.

            I was grateful for the shelter of the Ronald McDonald House that night. It was a place where the dark night was shared and somehow that made it more bearable.