Good Friday

So today is the remembrance of Jesus' crucifixion and death... the reason that we have hope is because he went into the depths of hell for our sake, was abandoned by his Father for our sake...

This year it has a new dimension for me. The Father lost his son... God knows the hell of losing a child and being 'left behind'. And he knows the joy of being reunited with that child and never being separated from him again. This is my hope this Easter... that because of Easter and Ascension Day, I will be reunited with my child too, and that we will never be parted again. I'm just not sure how I'm going to handle the time lag between my personal Good Friday and Ascension Day.

People around us keep commenting on how strong I'm being, how brave. A lot of what they see is me in ostrich mode - when I've buried my head in a book, or TV, or anything else I can think about. Escapism has its place. For one thing, it gives the mourner breathing space so as not to be overwhelmed by grief. I worry though that I'm spending too much time avoiding and not enough time 'being' with my grief.

When I'm being an ostrich, I can almost believe that I was never pregnant, that Zoe never was, and that life is just how it was 9 months ago. It's like this has happened to someone else, not me, and I'm just an observer. There's a distance between me and my feelings.

But then, as soon as I stop being busy or stop hiding, the pain and desolation hits me again. In those moments I think that if I can just say out loud often enough how wrong this is, someone will hear me and come and fix it; someone will knock on the door and tell me there's been a dreadful mistake, and the baby I gave birth to is alive; someone will have faith enough to raise Zoe back to life. But I know that's not going to happen, and I'm still not sure how I'm going to move forward from here.

I'm not about to slash my wrists or jump in front of a truck or take enough tablets to sleep the eternal sleep (although I'm so tired right now that the last one does sound appealing), so I guess I must be coping okay. I guess that's what people mean when they say how strong I am, or how brave I am. I just don't see it myself. I don't feel strong, or brave. Quite the opposite - I just want to run away from all this and hide - and I do run away and hide, quite a lot...

Which makes what Jesus did even more incredible. He faced worse than this - he knew what lay before him. Yet, instead of running away and hiding (which is what I would have done), he faced it, accepted it, and moved through it - right through to the other side of death. That's strength and bravery. What I do is merely coping, and hardly that. But I have to believe that, as Tony Campolo's preaching competitor said, 'It's Friday, but Sunday's coming!'