What Christian friendship looks like during crushing grief of 5-year-old's death
I’m 45 now. I’ve gone through some pretty heavy things.
I live with some twinges of PTSD from my checkered past. I’ve experienced the joy of childbirth and the heartbreak of losing a child through miscarriage. My best friend in high school lost her baby boy just about 24 hours after he was born. At the time, I was pregnant with my oldest child, Grace. I remember going to the funeral and staring at that tiny casket. My newly postpartum friend – weeping. I felt guilty for being pregnant, for being there at all. That was 19 years ago. Since then, I’ve lost friends to death. All four of my grandparents have passed away.
Death is part of all our lives. It’s not what was meant for us. Death entered the world through sin. Thankfully, we know that for those of us who believe in the Gospel, we will live in eternity with our Savior. I’m going to be honest, though, that thought is not really helping me right now.
My friend’s 5-year-old son, Micah, died on New Year’s Eve. Our friends, Paul and Maggie Kim, have six children. Their family is so dear to us. We have gone to church together for a long time. We are in a “Sunday Brunch Crew” group text with all our church pals. There are eight families in the group, with collectively 45 children. We worship together. Eat together. Pray for one another. Celebrate births. Mourn miscarriages.
But never this.
None of us has done this together. But we are now.
I didn’t really have a favorite kid, but I used to joke and say that Micah was my favorite Kim. He was good pals with my 6-year-old, Fulton. They have the same joyous spirit. Always smiling, laughing, and running. He would let me hold him long enough for a good squeeze, then wiggle out of my arms because there was always more running to do. “Chase me!”, he would yell out. And I would because I loved hearing his little giggle. Then we would all head to lunch (you should see all of us descend upon a restaurant), and he may come over to sit on my lap to steal some food off my plate. We would play silly little games, and he would throw his head back and laugh. That’s the memory forever in my mind now: Micah in my lap with a little navy and white checkered button-down shirt. His big smile, precious laugh, and half-sweaty head from all the running.
I’ll hold onto that image forever. I will have to keep it close because I don’t want the vision of his small casket to be the last thing I remember about him, although I will certainly never forget that either.
Truly, our minds and hearts are not meant to comprehend this sort of loss. None of us is supposed to know how to properly grieve a child. A spouse? Hard, but yes. Our parents? Yes. Grandparents? Of course. Siblings? Eventually, we may. But children are supposed to grow up and grieve our passing.
Yet, here we are, struggling through this impossible mourning. I keep asking God, “Why?” even though I know the answer. It just feels like I must ask anyway. Throughout this entire two-week span of Micah’s journey on life support and now his death, the importance of friendship has kept coming to mind. Not just regular, passing, secular friendships, though. The through and through, happiness and burdens, Body-of-Christ type of friendships. These aren’t necessarily your best friends. You don’t have to hang out all the time. But when there is a time for life’s most important celebrations, or a time to wail from immense suffering, they are there. They will fight for you, and they will also stand silently next to you, whatever you need.
As I have aged, I have learned to appreciate these friends more than they will ever know: my “Sunday Brunch Crew.” Soon, that crew will do something we will all feel is unimaginable – a first for most of us. We will stand and support our dear friends as they lay their 5-year-old son to rest. Eventually, the meal trains will end, the extended family will go home, and our crew will remain. And I figure that is what the Body of Christ is supposed to look like. Some come in for the immediate crisis. Some clean. Some cook. Some handle childcare. Some send help from afar. Some of us Mary. Some of us Martha. We all have our own purposes. But our Brunch Crew will stay for the long suffering, remembering Micah in our own personal ways.
Christmas didn’t feel festive this year. Micah’s passing will always mark Christmas for my family. Probably forever. And well, that’s life. Our lives are marked by celebrations and sufferings that we sometimes want to remember and sometimes want to forget. But I don’t want to forget Micah. I don’t want to forget the hours and hours my family spent praying for our dear friends. I don’t want to forget the many, many text message threads I am still a part of – all of us trying to do our best to make each minute a little easier for people we love so much. Mostly, I don’t want to forget just how important it is to have a community of people you can count on when all you can do is pray.
My sweet mom always says, “When you feel like all you can do is pray, remember that it is everything you can do.” Our Sunday Brunch Crew didn’t show up with friendship bread or flowers, but when all we could do was pray, that was all we did.
I will encourage you in this: Find your own “Brunch Crew” and love them well.
Abby Johnson is CEO and Founder of "And Then There Were None" and "ProLove Ministries."
