“Bury him deep in love. Bury him deep in love.
Take him in, under your wing. Bury him deep in love.”
These are words from a Jimmy Little album we chose to have played at Hugh’s funeral nine years ago. A few hours later his tiny coffin was buried by Doug and a dairy farmer/ freelance grave-digger who spoke, as he shovelled, of his cows and his family and his stomach ulcers – small and ordinary things. Doug and I stood and watched and listened, nodding, calm. The earth fell in clods and clumps. It was a small grave. It didn’t take long to fill.
Hugh was one of the unluckiest babies. At odds of 10,000 to one he was born unable to process oxygen. It happened spontaneously at the moment of his birth. There was no way to predict or correct it. For eight hours we held him – strong, perfectly formed little body, bare-boy chest, bright blue eyes that turned and followed our voices in spite of morphine and tubes and all the breathing apparatus that kept him alive. Our shock was raw and huge. He met his big sister and his family. We told him we loved him and he’d always be part of us. And then he was gone.
In this day and age it seems incredible that a perfectly formed child can die from ‘bad luck.’ People want someone to blame. I think the theory is that if we know why things happen, we can prevent them from happening to us… Understandable. But early on it became obvious to us that what’s really amazing is that so many children are born and thrive, all around the world, all the time. The trip down the birth canal is the most perilous journey any of us will ever make. Life itself is an amazing miracle. And luck is a part of the story. Even had Hugh’s death been the result of something explicable – a disease, some awful emergency or oversight – still there’d have been bad luck involved. Why not a cure? Why not more care or resources or knowledge? Why us? On the other hand, what had Doug and I already done to attract the brilliant luck that allowed us to find each other in life? To have our gorgeous three year old, Jem? To live in one of the most wealthy, beautiful countries on earth? This is a hugely inequitable planet. A massive amount of what happens here, both good and bad, has not been ‘earned’ by its 7 billion people. What right do any of us have to say ‘why me?’ Luck cuts both ways. That’s just life.
When I held Hughie in the moments before he died, his eyes fixed on mine, I told him: “Death does not win, little one. Love wins.” It was a choice – a promise, a prayer – not to allow misery, bitterness, bad luck, suffering- to be the defining feature of the future. Bold call. A different genetic make-up and I could easily have been plunged into depression after Hugh’s death. Unfold that scenario for my family: perhaps Brydie might not have been born; my marriage might look completely different; I might not be working in the job I have; our finances could be under strain… How might that bold promise have looked then? I don’t know. But I do know to acknowledge that much of what happens to us, both good and bad, is the product of luck is humbling and freeing. It’s just life. It makes us grateful for what we have and it makes us more compassionate toward others. Yes, we make choices. But probably the most significant choice we’ll ever make is simply the choice to love and to go on loving, no matter what. As I look back over nine years I’m overwhelmed by the love that surrounds this family. I feel grateful – and lucky – beyond belief. Doug, Jem, Brydie, my mum and dad, family and friends, this astonishingly beautiful world we live in… Today and always, I miss Hugh. I wonder who he’d have been, who we’d all have been together? But in some small ways I know. Because there is life after death. Believe it.
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