Father Mike is the pastor at our church. He gives some pretty good homilies. He gave one a few weeks ago that’s had me thinking since.
He was talking about sins of omission and sins of commission. He likes to bring in examples from recent news, and this Sunday one of the examples he used was the story of a father that caused his only child’s death. This man was supposed to deliver his eight month old son to daycare on his way to work. He forgot about the baby in the back seat, went to work, and the little guy got left in the car on a 90 degree day. You can guess the result.
Father Mike admitted his first reaction toward this forgetful dad was not one of charity. This is the second time an accident like this has happened in our area in the last few years. I tried to remember back when our kids were babies. If they were in the back seat I couldn’t take my eyes off them. I constantly checked the mirror or grabbed a quick look in the back seat. I probably was a danger to them because I wasn’t watching the road and could have easily crashed.
How could you forget about your baby?
But then I’d have to admit there have been times I was going to town or to my dad’s, and when the time came to turn at the corner, I would cruise straight on through, like I do when I’m going to work. In the small space of a few hundred yards to the corner, I’d gone into complete autopilot mode and started driving to work – like I’ve done everyday for nearly 40 years. I’d completely forget where I was supposed to be going. It’s happened more than once.
So maybe I shouldn’t judge.
Father Mike went on to explain how our job as followers of Christ is to forgive. To fight off that urge to judge. He talked about what this guy will be facing in the future. The incredible pain and difficulty he will have.
I think almost every grieving parent I’ve met has blamed themselves for the child’s death – even when they had nothing to do with it at all. I know I have.
Why didn’t I insist that Richard take the generic seizure meds to his doctor and make sure it was OK to take? He told me some new allergy medicine he’d been prescribed made him throw up and he stopped taking it. Why didn’t I connect that to possible seizures? He’d had vomiting in the days leading up to his other seizures. Why didn’t I make that connection?
Parents whose kids died in car crashes blame themselves for letting them go out that night.
As parents one of our jobs is to protect our kids. When they die, we just know we’ve failed, and it’s our fault. The truth is, these events weren’t in our control. None of us really could have prevented this awful thing from happening.
But what if it was your fault? What if your actions directly caused your child’s death?
How could you live with that?
How could you look in the mirror at your face every day? How could you face your wife, knowing you killed her baby? How could you go to work, knowing your coworkers would be looking at you and thinking baby-killer?
How could you forgive yourself?
I don’t know. But it probably has to start with us forgiving him first.
This man didn’t do this on purpose. It’s safe to assume he loved his little son, just as we loved ours. His kid is dead, just like ours is. He has to face going on in life without his child, just like we do. He faces all the pain and emotion we’ve faced. He didn’t want to join this exclusive little group anymore than we did, but he’s one of us.
He was human and made a mistake resulting in tragedy. He now has to face that. He’ll probably have to face it with much less support than we’ve had. He has priests using him as an example in sermons, and we don’t. His road seems much longer and harder than ours. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
I’ve said lot’s of prayers for him. I’ll continue to pray for him. I hope you’ll join me.
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