Bereavement Publishing Magazine Archives 
Caught in the Web Death/Child-Children Suicide 
Nordman, Patricia 
September 1988

No, God, no! In the grip of horror I flipped the pages of my tattered Bible, but what am I looking for, God? What salve do You have for a sudden and fatal wound--my son's and mine? What thread can you offer to hold mind and heart together now?

Miraculously my eyes fell on 2 Timothy 1:7: "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love, and of a sound mind." Yes, Father, thank You for the Holy Spirit of love, not the spirit of fear and hate and discouragement that causes death. O my God, take away this agony! I've loved and trusted You--and now this!

In desperation I switched on the electronic desert to get lost in the crowd of nothing, to wipe out the terrible no-sense of what had so recently happened in that dark woods. "But look at what that brand you bought did to our glasses! See the ones I washed yesterday, they're shiny and bright. That brand you used left spots--and there's company the door!" In my anger and grief I cursed their banal worries and inane expressions. The world is full of so much sorrow, and their world is ending because of DIRTY GLASSES! In some future, more rational time I could probably accept these idiocies, but now, in the midst of shattered hopes and memories I resented this exchange of the least for the very least.