Psalm 88

There is a term called “existential loneliness,” indicating that the very state of being human is to be alone, to suffer alone, to die alone. Some argue we are living in an epidemic of loneliness, even before this pandemic and social isolation. I have heard doctors refer to cancer cells as “acting out of a desperate kind of loneliness.” On the cross, Jesus prays, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”–the first lines of Psalm 22, showing us that He entered into the very profoundest depths of what it means to be human: those of despair in suffering.

The sun on my back hints of a spring that is still hiding its face, promising with silent lips to grace a day to come. In eighteen days, had she lived, Lizzy would have turned 4. I expected this winter to be the worst winter of my life, waiting for Cecilia to die, waiting for her to become more like Lizzy, waiting for many things that will never happen.

Sometimes I feel alone, but I am not afraid. A shift has occurred in my head and in my heart, and I know that Cecilia cannot benefit from my fear. I feel alone, but there is work to do. I feel alone, but Cecilia is with me in everything. Lizzy is with us in everything. So the loneliness that I feel matters less. In Lord of the Rings, Galadriel tells Frodo that “To be a ring-bearer is to be alone.” Perhaps just to be a human is to be alone.

And yet there is a strange transcendence that occurs in motherhood, where you understand that you will never be alone ever again. There exists no more physically intimate connection than that of mother and baby; no spouse remains inside of you for nine months. We have shared a body; we have shared a birth, and in sharing birth, we have touched together upon death. I know that I will see Lizzy as I am dying. In death, if we are all alone; in motherhood, my death will not be lonely.

What do you think, dear reader, if you exist or if you care? What do you feel when you read Psalm 88? The only Psalm without hope? What you do think when you wake to every day of this endless pandemic, when you watch the world crumbling around you and people suffocating in fear? Do you pray for the end or just wish to numb yourself to the pain? Do you feel alone or does your cold, blue computer or phone or tablet somehow take the place of warm, human skin with a pulse?

Jesus says, “Man cannot live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” I find I live by every breath that proceeds from Cecilia’s lips and every memory of every breath that proceeded from Lizzy’s. Without these things, I do not know who I am or what I am or why I am.

Upon his canonization, Saint John Paul the Great said, “Do not be afraid.” These were the words with which he chose to greet the world: a man who had experienced unspeakable grief and lived through ravages of suffering most of us can only imagine.

Lizzy, lying upon the hospital bed, looked up at me with total trust in her blue eyes, believing my unknowing lie that I would see her when she woke up. There was no fear in her–at least not until the moment when they pushed me back and strangers swarmed to intubate her.

Shall I be afraid when the saint that is my daughter exhales like a flame in the depth of my loneliness and my despair? Shall I be less brave than her, less willing to walk towards the light? Or shall I hear her voice and follow, blindly taking Cecilia’s hand and letting her big sister walk us both unseeing through this darkness?

Faith is about finding God when God is impossible to find. I have struggled with faith all of my life. But there are places to which the human heart travels from which there is no turning back. When all that is Caroline is lost in isolation and despair, that which is mother breathes, rises, and walks forward slowly. After all, what good comes to my daughters from my fear?

The question that I ask now and with which I continue to struggle is if God feels towards me the way I feel towards Lizzy and Cece. If this is true, then I have only begun to fathom the smallest part of love. If theology is just, I must learn to believe I am worthy of a comparable love to that I feel for my daughters. That God is waiting for me as I am waiting for Lizzy. That God has no room for fear because I need Him. How to believe this, how to feel this, is the question of faith. It is the question of isolation. It is the unanswered plea at the bottom of Psalm 88.

Some may argue that ultimately, we are all alone, but I have not found this to be true. I think fear whispers in loneliness and tells convincing lies. We live in a world replete with God’s reminders that we are not alone. And if we are graced enough to find love in another human being, then “perfect love casteth out all fear,” mostly because fear is paralyzing, consuming, and antithetical to love.

So I shall not be afraid.

Because I am not alone.

I shall not be afraid.

I am not alone.