Life on the Second Row, Piano Side-Chapter 2: Miracles Along the Journey of Grief

The days following the accident are a blur-just fragments of memories.  Was it real or had I imagined it?  Where was my family?  Why weren't we all together.  Exactly where was Brian.  I mean I know they said he was "gone," but gone where?  Heaven, but where was heaven?  With Jesus, but where was Jesus?  I wrestled with those hard questions for many months to come. I must confess that sometimes I still do.  The human mind can not truly conceive the things that God has prepared for those who love him.

Although, there were no answers to all the questions, God proved faithful.

Mama was still in the hospital and due to multiple injuries, she was unable to attend the funeral or see her baby, but oh she saw him! 

She tells the story, "I was alone in my tears and I literally felt like my heart was about to burst.  It was Easter Sunday and my meal was brought to my room.  I didn't feel like eating.  I was served dry toast and grape juice.  In that hospital room, I had my own Communion with God.  I recalled a passage of scripture, "By His stripes we are healed."  I needed an emotional healing more than I needed a touch to my body.  As I partook of the bread and the juice, I saw heaven opened.  I was not asleep.  I saw my baby walking beside a clear river.  He was picking flowers and was holding the hand of Jesus.  I never got away from that vision.  It sustained me through the many sorrowful months that lay ahead."

God gave Mama a glimpse of heaven.

 

Daddy walked around in a stupor leaving his children to grieve alone, while we missed the comfort that only a mama could give.

I didn't like the smell of the funeral parlor. Even the aroma of the flowers made me ill.  I wanted to throw up.  I wanted to run away.  I did not want to be here!  My sister, my brother, and I were sobbing.  My strong Daddy was broken.  The preacher gathered us together to pray with us before we viewed the body.  In the midst of our hopeless state, I won't ever forget the unseen presence that filled the room as the preacher prayed.  It was as if a hush fell over us.  Our tears stopped and we immediately knew peace.  As a family we embraced and cried.  I saw my Daddy grieve like never before and my heart was broken, but the peace that I knew at that moment was like nothing I had known before.

There were miracles all along the journey.  After the police report and investigation, the officers were mystified as to how I got out of the car.  I had not a scratch on me with no visible sign of injury, confirmed by examination and xray.  When I shared my story of how I had crawled out of the front seat, they said, "No, that could not have happened."  The driver side was completed crushed as a car in a junk yard and beyond recognition.  All I can tell you is what I thought I saw and what I thought I did.  I only know that I was on the side of the road, unharmed and walking around.

A few weeks later, my oldest brother and I went to see the wreckage, hoping to find some evidence of life before the accident, some evidence that of our baby brother had once lived.  I was told that his billfold was full of change and had already been removed and given to our mother.  What I discovered was a door that could not have been preyed open even with a crow bar and a broken window that I could not have escaped from without multiple injuries.

The inscription on the tombstone read, "Our Bud for the Master's Bouquet."  Brian truly was a bud...
a flower not quite ready to pick.
I find the rose bud more beautiful than the mature rose. 

A vision...an angel taking one and sparing another...an unseen hand providing comfort to those who mourn...all miracles in the midst of pain.

Life on the Second Row, Piano Side was never the same, but we learned that God is always the same.