Embracing Grief: Bring Him Home

By Richard Edfeldt

My family has become frequent attendees to many of the musical theater productions that are in the area. Our love for this wonderful form of entertainment was brought to a fever pitch by Jacob’s involvement in it and his love for the theater.

Among our favorites is Les Misérables. Each time we have gone to see it we are moved by the power of the music and the story being told through song. I’m not going to go into great detail about the plot of the story. You can buy or rent the recent movie made based on the musical to see for yourself (the acting was good but the singing doesn’t come close to the powerful voices you’d hear in a theater).

There is a song sung by one of the major characters of the play, Valjean. It is a prayer on behalf of a critically injured young man (Marius) who is in love with his adopted daughter, Cosette. Here are the lyrics:

God on high, Hear my prayer // In my need, You have always been there

He is young, He's afraid // Let him rest, Heaven blessed.
Bring him home, Bring him home, Bring him home.

He's like the son I might have known, If God had granted me a son.
The summers die, One by one // How soon they fly, On and on
And I am old, And will be gone.

Bring him peace, Bring him joy // He is young, He is only a boy

You can take, You can give // Let him be, Let him live
If I die, let me die, // Let him live
Bring him home, Bring him home, Bring him home.

As you see, it is a prayer of a father figure for a loved one, asking for… begging for restored health for his son. And so you can understand why I identify so closely with this song.

It was often my prayer (“God on high, hear my prayer”) for restored health for Jacob (“He is young, he’s afraid; he is only a boy. Let him rest, heaven blessed”) so that he could return home (“Bring him home”). I believe that is the prayer of any parent. We want our children to be well. We want them to experience peace and ease in this life. We wish for them to enjoy times of joy. Many times throughout Jacob’s life those prayers were answered….but not the last time.

But in one sense it was … just not the way I intended and hoped.

Indeed, God did bring Jacob home on June 14, 2009. God brought him to his eternal home where he is now enjoying “rest, peace, and joy” in a perfect body.

I miss him dearly and I often wish he could still be ‘home’ with us. There have even been times when I have wished for a different ending where “If I die, let me die” but “let him live”. But that wasn’t to be. Understanding why is beyond comprehension and is a fruitless effort. As well, it is a maddening exercise to try to understand how this could be in God’s plan. But it is what it is.

Yet, in those times when I set aside my parental emotions and see through a set of eternal lenses, I can also find comfort in the assurance of his present state. He has a perfect body with no need of further hospitalizations, medicines, procedures, needle pricks, operations and horrible anti-rejection treatments. To wish him back and to once again endure those things would be selfishness on my part. But I do miss his smile, his laugh, and his quirks.

And so I hold on to the promise of a future reunion when I, too, am brought “Home”.

So for now, any time I hear the song, I can only tearfully and vicariously sing the prayer of appeal and find comfort in that he’s “Home”.