The Promise

How I Survive Estrangement

Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

"The way out of our loss and hurt is in and through." — Henri Nouwen

I have heard it said that suffering is optional - that we choose, in a painful situation, whether or not we suffer. I couldn’t disagree more. Suffering is existential. It is the part of pain that touches the depth of our humanity. It is unique and inherent to the human condition. Dogs don’t suffer. They think from moment to moment that something hurts. Humans, however, can experience trauma and hurt which at times, penetrates to the depths of their being. Suffering is a dark companion that they wake with and take to bed again.

Two years ago, I tore my right meniscus (the pad that protects the knee joint) which was an excruciating injury. The healing took about a year. At the 10 month point, I fell and fractured my left knee cap. It really hurt. Those were about the most painful physical events I have experienced (outside of childbirth), but I can’t say that I suffered. That sort of pain causes you to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, bite the bullet, and get through because there is a known endpoint. As healing occurs, it is forward movement. There is hope and confidence in restoration.

Estrangement from a child, however, especially when it is sudden and especially when it has little people attached, is another kind of pain. It is suffering. When you suffer, it is an experience of surreal quality. It is falling through a trap door, suspended in darkness. There is no discernable bottom to this pit. It is social deprivation like solitary confinement and mind racking like a torture chamber. It is the catastrophe that endures. It could easily be the end of hope and even survival. But as Nouwen says, “in and through” is our way out.

For non-religious people enduring the experience of estrangement, I ask your indulgence. I share my experience in the hope that even non-believers can find an explanation for and possible growth from suffering. My “in” is Jesus, and my “through” is Faith. I was raised a Catholic and practiced nominally most of my young life. However, the death of my children’s father when the youngest was 5, was a slap in the face. We had just recently divorced, but there was, I believe, a path back. He died in a drowning accident and our world was changed forever. I returned to the Faith of my baptism and got serious about it. We lived, from that point, a dedicated family life centered around the Catholic Church.

The Christian life is founded upon a man who was (is) God. He took on human form in order that we might see that God truly knows our experience. He brought the most perfect love to our sinful condition. The way we repaid Him was to mock, betray, torture, and finally murder Him. Sound familiar (for us, soul murder)? This Being who created the entire universe, humbled Himself to the baseness of our humanity. Before being arrested, He experienced the agony in the Garden of Olives where he sweat blood while he experienced the horror of every sin ever committed by every person he had ever created. He was then beaten, spit upon, unjustly tried (and found innocent by Pontius Pilate), scourged, crowned with a ring of the most fiercely thorned branches, forced to carry the instrument to which he would be nailed, hung to die slowly for three hours and run through with a spear. He was innocent. And he loved us to the end.

I bring this into my discussion on our experience of being estranged by our children because without it, I might have questioned my love for my own children. I might have never been able to forgive them. I am so fallen and weak that I might have succumbed to despair and even ceased to exist. It is the only way I can make sense and find radical acceptance. In Catholicism we call it detachment. Because, the story doesn’t end there. Jesus promised that if we follow Him, and carry our cross, He will come for our eternal soul at the end. He will wipe away every tear. We will know the reason for it all and we will be eternally happy regardless of the cost. We will experience unconditional and everlasting love. Who wouldn’t love that happy ending?

This is Holy Week for Christians. We contemplate Christ’s sacrifice in his passion and death. We unite our sufferings with His, knowing that there is salvific power in it all. It is difficult for me to pity myself when I gaze on the Man of Sorrows, knowing that my sin was involved. It is impossible for me not to forgive my children knowing that I’m forgiven my own deep faults. And, I feel a deep obligation to keep finding hope in my compassionate Saviour who promised me, in His resurrection from the dead, that “I make all things new”.

I pray for all parents whose children have estranged them. I know your pain and walk with you. One of the greatest gifts we have is each other, and I thank God for every one of you. May you have a Blessed Easter.