Leave A Hole

Mothers die. What will you leave behind?

A lovely old photo from spring, 2019

Right now, many of us are grappling deeply with death.

Not loss. Loss has been an all-to frequent companion these last few years, hasn’t it? But though I’ve personally watched beloved family members pass away with alarming frequency over the past decade, society on the large hasn’t. It’s been shocking for me. As each new grief pushed me into the place of mourning, the world has gone on. And yet here we stand now in the face of the loss of Shiri Bibas and her sons, finally forced to contemplate death itself, and it's inevitablity, and how the life you live here and now carves out the hole you will leave behind in the hearts of those still counting their own days.

My mother's death in 2019—unexpected, startling—shook me, and it gave rise to so many questions. Underneath them all was a throbbing awareness of my own finite nature, and the transience of the time I will spend here on earth. These are normal questions, necessary questions. Now in light of the very public loss of one mother in Israel, I see others chewing on those same questions..

Why is it that a mother dying hits us hardest? Whether we know her or not, whether she has babies or grandchildren, the death of someone like us makes us pause and consider that someday we, too, will leave this all behind.

Our husbands. Our children. Our siblings. Our friends.

Someday, we will be gone.

We know this, of course. We know that these bodies will fail. That accidents will happen. That we were not meant to last forever. That our dying breath will, eventually come. We know it, and we fear it, even as believers. We fear it not because of what's waiting (thank you, Jesus, for paying the price I could not!)... but because of what we will leave behind.

We know we are the glue. We are the ones who worry that the ship will sink if we step away for a weekend. We think that we're the only one who can handle this task, or clean this properly, or juggle this schedule, or make the lasagna exactly the way it needs to be made. We refuse to take our eyes off of the kid balancing on the rock in the park, or making the pass on the soccer field, or proposing to the girl, or putting in for the promotion, or navigating new parenthood because oh, my gosh, what if he needs me? What if he looks to me for reassurance and I've blinked? What if, what if, what if?

But someday... we'll be gone.

Because mothers die.

Whether they were our actual mother, or our best friend, or our sister, or our cousin, or just simply our people—they die. And if they were very good at the job God created them for, they leave a hole. They leave a hole that hurts and aches and is so tender to the touch that we wake up in the middle of the night and we can't sleep for the pain of it. If we were once their baby, we grieve over the arms that will never again hold us. And if some precious nine year-old girl is now without her Momma, we weep for her first period, her wedding, her first baby alone, with no mother at her side. We cry for her best friend, who will move into the next stage of life without her partner in crime cheering her on. We hold our own husband extra tight, and we put our phone down and look our preschoolers in the eye, and we thank God that we are here, living this wildly beautiful and terrifying life with our hearts walking freely outside of our own bodies.

We've been ruminating on this, and kicking God's shins, and asking the same thing over and over: "Why mothers? Why did that young mother have to die so brutally?” and that gives way to those deeper questions I hinted at: “Why does that Dad have to raise those babies alone? Why does that family have to hurt? Why can't that grandmother watch her grandkids grow up?"

After years of thinking, and asking, and praying, I think I see the answers now. Somewhere along the way, we’ve forgotten that God isn't afraid of pain. He uses it all the time to cultivate a nearness to His people that might not otherwise exist. In His wisdom, God welcomes the hole that follows the loss of a mother.

The space a mother leaves behind, the emptiness that is her wake—it's every bit as formative as her presence. God's plan for mothers is so big and so pervasive that their influence is felt in ripples, even after they're gone. The memory of her, the reminders, the lingering sense that we should live up to some small element of her legacy are all a continuation of the blessing that a truly great mother leaves as a gift to the people she has loved best. The mothers who leave us wondering how we will ever go on without them, they are the mothers that drive us towards a sanctification and a sacrificial love that points, always, to Christ, and to the nurturing love that God has for His creation.

As the world absorbs the news of a young mother's death, I felt compelled to renew the commitment I made in the wake of my own mother's passing six years ago: I will live my life in such a way that when I pass, whether it is a long process of goodbye or a sudden slip from earth to heaven, I am mourned. Not mentioned, not noted, not merely missed: mourned. I will leave the people God has placed in my circle grappling with the loss, keenly aware of absence, and celebrating the love I have given them. I will leave them marked by countless acts of affection, and with the words, "I love you," ringing in their ears. I will leave them aware of my shortcomings, but equally aware of my constant desire to walk with Christ. I will make them wonder who will ever fill my role, but also challenged to be more of a peacekeeper, more of an encourager, and more of a visionary that I ever managed to be. I will leave them longing for our reunion, and also confident that it will take place.

I want to leave a hole when I leave this earth. I want God to use my life and my death the same way He has used so many other godly women who have gone on before. I pray each day that He reveals to me how to fulfill the full calling of a mother, now, and for eternity.

In Christ,

Heather