Tomorrow will be four years since Evan departed this life. The ache of his absence doesn’t go away, but I’m learning to live with it. Maybe I even welcome it as a sign of the love we continue to share.

Someone I recently met asked me how I maintained faith in God’s goodness in the midst of an event as horrific as the death of my son. I appreciate her question because it made me think about how the faith and prayers of family and friends got me through my darkest days. Mercifully, I was mostly unaware of how foggy my brain was until long after the fog lifted. I probably had that luxury only because others were taking care of me.

I didn’t tell my new friend this, but I also laughed even in the midst of grief. That first Sunday after he drowned, while Doug was still in Guatemala, Xhiv, Cana and I went to Mass at a nearby parish here in Houston. We purposely chose a parish where we wouldn’t know anyone. The homilist had no idea we were there or what we were going through and told a story about a man who was at sea in a storm on a boat with his son and his son’s friend. The boat capsized and the father had to choose between throwing a life line to his faithful Christian son and his son’s unbaptized friend. Reasoning that his son’s soul would be saved, and worried that the other young man might go to Hell, he saved the friend. The story ends with the young man who was saved becoming a priest and telling the story at church winning two teen converts. I’ve since learned that there are many versions of this story on the internet, but I’d never heard it before. What are the chances I’d hear it that day? The three of us laughed at the sheer absurdity of the fact that we’d gone to Sunday Mass the day after we found out about Evan’s drowning and were subjected to such a homily. We also left Mass early.

Sometimes things don’t make sense. There was no lesson to be learned and God didn’t speak to me through the homily that day. I could only laugh at life’s absurdities and be grateful that my two daughters laughed with me and that we could lean on each other to get through.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.

_{II Corinthians 1:3&4}