Last night, another team and mine sat at our host families’ youngest daughter’s birthday party. We ate cake, played games, and had a wonderful time celebrating life. It was great to see Indian traditions in celebration.
Today, my team and I arrived at Sarah’s Covenant Home to the news that one of the new babies had passed away moments earlier unexpectedly. Celebration and death so close together, how do I process this? It seemed even more intertwined since we had arrived a little late this morning because we were picking up cake and ice cream to have a last day party for the home. I wasn’t really in the mood to “party” most of the day as it was a day filled with mourning, other very sick babies, and difficult goodbyes. While it was such an honor to be able to thank and bless the beautiful women we got to work with this past month, it felt out of place to be passing our cake and ice cream.
After our normal day of being with the kids, the caretakers had a service for Jonathan before heading to the cemetery. It was so beautiful and heartbreaking as they sang, wept, prayed, and decorated this child with fragrant flowers. Kait and I went with a few caretakers and the home owners to the cemetery for the funeral service. As we sat in the trunk of the SUV with Jonathan’s little coffin, I think it finally hit me. Besides the sister he leaves behind at SCH, my teammates and I were the closest thing this boy had to family and here I am on the way to my baby’s funeral, this is really happening.
We were warned, but the cemetery is a field like most in India- covered in trash and a roaming ground for animals. After the pastor said a few words and a prayer was said, we all threw dirt on the coffin and the finality sunk in for me. The caretakers sweetly cleaned the entire area of the gravesite to leave it clear of trash then we carefully arranged colorful flowers atop the dirt. There we stood in this filthy yard, surrounded by water buffalo, with the most breath taking sunset, burying a child I had spent the past 20 days loving. How does my limited understanding of God take in what all of that means?
Jonathan means gift of God and even today he felt like a gift from
God. Changing my heart, even as he returns to his father, he was and is a gift.
