April 5

. . . and behold! a third theme grew amid the confusion, and it was unlike the others. For it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Iluvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.

– JRR Tolkien, “The Ainulindale” from The Silmarillion, page 17

Lizzy did not die for a reason, but that does not mean that reason cannot be brought out of her death.

It has taken me two years to begin to understand this sentence.

When Lizzy died, everyone had a theory as to why. In retrospect, I think it was just the very human need in each of us to try and understand something which was fundamentally incomprehensible. I will not enumerate everyone’s “reasons” here. Suffice it to say that I have spent every spare moment systematically investigating and debunking each of these theories.

I get it. I do. It makes life more bearable if we can point to this one thing and say “that’s what did it.” It gives us a false sense of control. Of power. Of purpose moving forward. If we have identified the problem, it follows that we can eliminate it, regain control, and prevent the same thing from happening to Cece or to any other child.

Unfortunately, that’s nothing more than willful self-delusion. Lizzy’s death is so galling precisely because it defies logic and reason. Precisely because it is impossible to point to any single factor rather than a confluence of myriad choices and circumstances that created the perfect environment to consume to her life. I could go into the details, the biology, the autopsy and medical records with you, but I won’t. That’s not the point.

The point is reason, logic, the rational and irrational. The point is what our brains can and can’t compass. The point is that all I could state for days was that “my brain is broken” because Lizzy’s death had violated every law of reality, human nature, love, and reason that I had encountered in 33 years of living. Lizzy’s death is where reason meets irrationality, where logic fractures, shudders, and collapses, where nightmares have crossed the boundary of sleep into wakefulness and barred every door to escape.

What is left when the absurd and the unreal become the only reality–the utterly inescapable reality? The answer isn’t simple. It’s whatever remains of your brain that’s whole enough to pick up the pieces and build some new kind of network that resembles the order of the old but allows for the chaotic void that now swirls, howling, behind your consciousness. Now, every time you open your mouth, you want to let out that primal scream that started when they told you your child’s heart had stopped, but instead you find a way to breathe, stifle it, and manage to mumble, “I’m doing okay.”

The uncomfortable truth is that nothing will ever be okay again. The world broke for me when Lizzy died and nothing and no one can put it back together. Reason itself broke, logic broke, and the most any of us can manage is to limp along with our shattered, jagged collections of glass and pretend we’re holding mirrors.

I think this is what it means to be human: to be broken. To not be able to understand. To consistently encounter points where understanding just stops. And I think that peace, if there is any to be found, lies in the acceptance of this brokenness–yours, mine, the world’s. It means accepting, on some level, the brokenness that took Lizzy from me. It means understanding that the brokenness is not caused by me alone, cannot be corrected by me alone, and is not the only story that matters.

In The Silmarillion, Melkor, the source of original darkness, tries to drown out the music of the one God, Iluvatar, by playing more loudly, aggressively, and terribly than every other music. But, no matter what he does, the loudest and darkest notes he plays are only incorporated into the greater music of Iluvatar, and used to deepen the beauty and truth of the symphony. Iluvatar chastises him, saying, “And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined” (page 17).

I read “The Ainulindale” from The Silmarillion when I am lost in the brokenness of my own brain. I think it helps me accept the limits of my own reason. It helps me accept that Lizzy’s death was not caused by just one factor and cannot be explained by amateur and pedantic philosophy. I think being born human is somewhat like being born mostly blind. That is, if we only have peripheral vision or colorless vision or night vision or vision only from the corner of one eye, how can we pretend to know what we’re looking at? How can we comprehend the incomprehensible death of a two-year old when all we have known or understood is two-year-olds who grow into little girls, then little women, then mothers, then grandmothers?

I believe there is a greater vision guiding our limited vision, a greater justice guiding our limited justice, and a greater reason guiding our limited reason. Lizzy’s death destroyed my 33-year-old capacity for reason, but that very destruction created room to engender a new kind of reason. I now have more will to live and more purpose behind every action and choice than I ever had before Lizzy died. I now see every minute that is given to me and Cecilia as a gift that was not given to Lizzy, which therefore needs to be used to its fullest. I am more awake, aware, driven, and alive than I was before Lizzy died, mostly because I choose to believe Lizzy’s death is not the end of the story.

It’s not the end of my story, certainly. Or Cecilia’s. But I think the point I’m dancing around is that it’s not the end of Lizzy’s story either. Lizzy’s death broke reason and gave birth to a deeper reason. Lizzy’s death broke love and gave birth to a deeper love. Lizzy’s death took her life but deepened mine and Cecilia’s in ways we are only beginning to learn. And I think it is teaching my entire family a new kind of reason: a deeper reason, a bigger reason.

I think that’s just what humans do. We break things because we are broken, and we perpetuate brokenness. But brokenness is not the whole story, and I don’t think it’s the end of the story either. I think that’s why I am a Catholic. Because humans did everything they could imagine to break Jesus of Nazareth’s brain, body, and spirit, and he did nothing to stop them. He received their mindless brutality with nothing but truth on his lips, in every drop of sweat and blood, in every shard of broken bone. He took all of this darkness and brokenness and death upon himself and turned it into beauty . . . into life. And into light.

In 2019, Lizzy died a week before Easter. In 2021, April 5 fell on Easter Monday. I think this is a day for speaking and telling the truth, so I will tell you my truth today. I am broken, bitter, dark, and despairing. I am a sinner who needs to become a saint so that I can see my dead daughter again. I am a mother who lost all sense of self and all sense of reason when her toddler died. So, on this day, when I am remembering Lizzy’s death, I will not allow her grave to be the end. On this day, I am abandoning my lesser reason for the reason of resurrection. I am trusting that I can only see a fraction of the picture and hear a fragment of the music, and that every action I take, both weak and strong, will be woven into the far greater symphony.

I am going to remember that I named Cecilia Amaris–Hebrew for “God-given”–but that Lizzy was also given to me, that so very much has been given to me, and that I have limited time in which to give myself back. So I refuse to waste time on my brokenness, my sin, and my despair.

There’s too much to do.