Baby Greg died last night. At six thirty pm, during a routine feeding, he stopped breathing in the arms of a ward nurse. A ship-wide emergency page was made and all the doctors rushed in to see what could be done. He died, and his mother Marian wept bitterly, crying, 'God has let me down!'
They wrapped up his small body to be taken home with his mother. Some doctors and nurses drove. Most likely they will have a burial today, since there isn't anything by way of a morgue around here. What a good fight he fought! He tried so desparately to learn to breathe on this Earth. At the time God ordained, Greg's stay with us ended.
My roommate Ellen had organized the 24/7 prayer chain event for him. She came into our cabin crying. Having heard the overhead announcement and then seeing her, I knew Greg had died. I stared at the one and a half pair of yellow socks made on my desk and felt immediate remorse that I hadn't finished them just yet. Is that what we're all left with? Just a bunch of prayers, a half finished sock and some good intentions?
And then this sacred Scripture came into my mind:
The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout people are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. -- Isaiah 57:1
Rest in peace, baby Greg. We love you and know you are breathing with a perfect set of lungs right now, spared from the future pain you may have had on this limited Earth.
1 comment:
oh that makes me so sad. poor mother. all she's been through..
but God's ways are higher than ours. i know the docs and the nurses have done all that's in their power to do, and Ellen and you and the rest of the crew, praying 24/7, and then God chose to take him home.
my prayers and thought goes out to the mother and the grandmother.
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