Living with an Open Hand

This is the speech I gave last weekend at the May Memorial, Remembering Our Losses. I hope it will be an encouragement.

 

OPEN HAND

 

Of all the many lessons I’ve learned in my life, there is one in particular that stands out.

 

The lesson: live with an open hand.

 

Living with an open hand is like holding a butterfly. It means not squeezing too tightly to what we want, to what we love; otherwise it may be crushed between our fingers. Instead, we can open our hands and let that which we desire stay however long it wishes. If it goes, it may return if we remain open, but there is also the chance it will not come back. Living openly like this means being grateful for what we have for however long we have it.

 

In happy times, this lesson sounds easy, but throughout the years, living with an open hand has proved one of the greatest challenges I’ve faced. This lesson was first extolled to me it was at the end of a friendship, then again at the end of a romantic relationship, and again and again through many struggles – and I thought of it once more when my son Zachary died in my arms.

 

Living with an open hand applies to all matters of the heart – and parenting perhaps greatest of all.

 

What I’ve heard from parents with older children is that every day is an act of letting go. They feel it the first time their child goes to school; crosses the street by themselves; has a sleepover. I envy these parents whose experience of letting go is so gradual. I envy their challenges and weep and wish that Zachary could have done even just one of those things.

 

Many of our children never even once touched their feet to the earth; they were carried all their lives. I still think about the events at Zachary’s death, a part of me wishing I had touched his tiny toes to the floor, just one time, just to say he did it. That small detail fills my heart with longing – and I can feel my body tense and my hand, like this, squeeze shut, wishing to grasp the future I had so ardently hoped and planned for.

 

It is in these moments of longing that I hear the voice of my parents, encouragers, mentors from over the years. “Live with an open hand,” they told me. “Life is about loving and letting go.”

Truly, it is one of the greatest struggles for a parent; to let go of a child. It is not easy when the baby is ten weeks gestation or ten years old. There is no easy time. Still, I believe the words, “It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”

 

Loving teaches us compassion and empathy. Love teaches us what matters and why we are here on this earth. Love knocks us down. Love picks us up. Love is stronger than death. Love is both the greatest gift and the hardest lesson we will ever learn.
Living with an open hand is not easy but it is freeing. It recognizes that we have so little control over our lives and that all we can do is appreciate each and every blessing, the big and the small, those that remain a lifetime and those that last but a breath. I held my son for thirty weeks within me and just moments afterwards. Then he left – but because of him many good and unanticipated joys have filled my life, have rested like a butterfly in my open palm.
Today, I wish all our babies were with us, but it was their time to spread their wings and fly – and it is our time to honour their short but precious lives.