The Zen Practice of Parenting
I know a man whose child was born with death immediately knocking. I came to know this about him when he asked me to cut his beard shorter than we ever had. I ask what has prompted this change? He has been and will be wearing a surgical mask quite often for the foreseeable future. His child has been born. They are in the intensive care unit with a prognosis that says odds are they will be there for the entirety of their life, the length of which provokes resentment and raises questions about everything he thought he knew.
“Wow, I'm so sorry,” I say. “ That sounds fucking hard.”
Out of a small closed crooked smiling mouth comes a laugh and a “Yeah” as a reply.
“I must say, you seem very centred; how have you managed that?”
“I just got tired of crying all the time... and my child... my family... they are in enough pain. I don't need to bring any more. I feel sad and cry, in the truck on the way to and from the hospital, in the evenings and sometimes at work. When I hold my child, I just love.”
“What a gift you are giving them.”
When they leave this world, be it against all odds in old age, tomorrow, or perhaps they are already gone as I write this, they will have experienced a father swimming in the bliss of their existence right now—not drowning in the sorrow of the moment that comes after their last breath.
What a gift he has given us all. He has seen the ephemeral flower and decided to smile at its temporal but exuberant aliveness.
He did not turn sorrow off. He chose to feel it fully. This I think is why he is able to hold his family. Give and receive love while staring at the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, knowing that it will be gone before he is. Sorrow is not separate from joy. It is parallel to it—a truth this man chose to live.
Pain and death will come knocking for us and everyone we love. We can choose to feel it. To live it all, to grieve when we feel we must and to give the gift of presence and joy. To bask in the beauteous being, the perfect imperfections of those we love most, while the quietly deafening void awaits.
your irreverent pope