by Pastor Chris Brademeyer
September 13, 2021 – It was today, two years ago, that I laid my little girl into the cold ground. It wasn’t the sleepless nights wherein we were feeding her every two or three hours by syringe pump that I remember most vividly. Nor is it the guttural scream Katherine uttered when Sophia passed away in her arms, the sort of cry of despair that only a mother can make when her baby’s life is robbed of its expected fullness. It isn’t the funeral that I recall most, even though people came from near and far to support us and to lay her to rest. I must admit, her 34 days are a blur of stress, work, sleeplessness, worry, joy, and thanksgiving. No, the thing I remember the most is the total and utter helplessness I felt when I watched her two grandfathers lower her casket into the ground. Grown, respectable men, holding back tears, faces contorted in pain, lips tightly pursed to keep their emotions in check; it is these stoic, heartbroken men kneeling on the damp earth in their best suits, to lower a small white casket into that merciless, uncompromising grave that sticks in my mind most vividly. They stooped down and, like the great greedy beast it is, that grave swallowed her little body, her little casket, never to give her up again.
Two years later, my precious little girl is just as gone as she was on that day. The hole in my heart is still there. The pain is still raw and sharp, though time has helped me to manage it more. Death took my little girl. It tried to steal her from me. If there is no antidote to death, then this life is absurd and meaningless, a farce forced on us by happenstance, cosmic accident, or some demonic god hell-bent on torturing us helpless human beings for its own twisted amusement.
Every year on this day, the memories flood in as fresh and sharp as if it was still that wretched day when I gave her away.
And it is on this day, every year, I remind myself that death has been put to death. The pain still lingers, the loss is still fresh and sore, but death has been put to death. And, through Jesus Christ, who has redeemed my poor little girl, my little Sophia, I know that we will reunite. Until then, this anniversary will wear on my soul like coarse sandpaper on a fresh wound.
But death has been put to death, sin has been destroyed. In their place, she, and all those in Christ, have been given righteousness everlasting.
She was born on August 7, 2019, to live a short, torturous life. She was born again by water and the Spirit in holy Baptism unto eternal salvation a day later. Today hurts. I think it will always hurt. But today doesn’t get the last word. Jesus does. And, in Christ, there is no suffering or sorrow or pain anymore.
Until I see you again in the Resurrection, my little Sophia, requiescat in pace. Amen.