Today we bury Theo. He is our grandson who we never got to talk to. He died on December 28 while he was still in the womb. His death has been devastating to his parents and his brother Myles. Theo was born dead on Sunday December 30, 2018. I’m grateful that I got a chance to meet him and touch his plump little cheeks and put my hand on his chest. Though we never talked we got to share a prayer. We know from the autopsy report that Theo had a condition in his blood that would have made him prone to hemorrhages. But, to look at Theo one would never guess that. He looked like an angel. I will never forget looking at his beautiful face nor will I forget the sobs of his mother and father.
We expect the death of older people. Birth, life and death is a cycle common to us all. We don’t expect death before birth. Though we never got to hold him and feel the warmth of his skin we could feel the warmth of his spirit and that is what we will celebrate today at his memorial which will occur in a few hours. That divine spark is within us all from the moment of our conception and it transcends our death. In fact we never really die once we’re conceived.. Our ancestors are never really dead either. We bear all of their light within us and we pass it on to our children and they to their children and so on.
Death is a concept that is man made and maybe more so among western civilization. We know from quantum physics that energy is neither created nor destroyed but merely changed from one form to another. Therefore though we can no longer touch Theo, he continues to touch us. His physical absence is not non-existence. His energy or soul if you will lives on within all of us and I believe that someday we will see him again.
I had a sister, Mary Patricia, who lived but thirty-six hours. I never got to see her, but I remember her still and sometimes I think of her and wonder what she would have been like. The pain of the death of a child is great. These are the times that invite me to wonder. How does this all make sense. Why?
“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” – Corinthians 1: 13-12. Like St. Paul wrote a couple thousand years ago, we see only a reflection but someday we will see fully and know fully that which we cannot fully comprehend now. This is I know though and that is that Theo lives within us all. He is our guardian angel.
We
have been given the option of placing something in Theo’s grave and
I’m giving him the Cross of San Damiano because I was on a
pilgrimage to Assisi when we first learned he was coming to live with
us. May the Lord bless you Theo and keep you and make his face to
shine upon you and give you his peace.”