Everybody hurts....

A young father passed away this weekend, leaving his young wife and two children behind,along with his own parents. I cannot begin to imagine the sorrow his wife, and children are going through, I feel a great sadness for his parents. No parent should have to bury their own child. I know this all to well, as my husband and I buried a baby daughter, almost ten years ago now. I do not claim to know what is like to lose a parent or a husband, but my heart aches, when a parent loses a child. During the wake, I wanted badly to tell that mother, I knew what she was feeling, but experience has taught me, that people do not see her pain, as being the same as my pain. She has been a mother to her son for 43 years. I carried our daughter for only 38 weeks, never even heard her cry. How could it possibly be the same, we have nothing in common. Today was the funeral, the homily was beautiful, the priest made mention, of this young man's life and what he meant to his community,what he meant to his children and his loving wife, who was now a widow. Then the priest said something that spoke to my heart, he mentioned his parents, and how there is, no word, no defintion in the dictionary, to describe, a parent who loses a child. No title for their pain, their hurt. I cried while listening to his words, it made sense to me. What we have in common is our hurt, regardless of how many years we were parents, we hurt. Somehow words that were meant to help comfort this family, ended up being a comfort to me.