The Ballestero Blog

It’s Just Too Painful

We slowly pushed our trays as we viewed the K&W Cafeteria choices for lunch. My son, Bryan and I were on our way to the deer lease, but right now we were hungry. The servers were commenting that we chose the same entries and side dishes. “You can tell we’re father and son,” Bryan offered.

“You’re father and son?” the old gentleman in front of my son asked, turning in our direction.

“Yes sir” my son offered.

“Aw, it’s good to see fathers and sons eat together. I lost my son two months ago. He was my only son. He was 42, he died of a broken heart.” The old gentleman’s eyes rimmed with tears.

I gave him my condolences. My son did too. I volunteered that I was a minister and that Bryan was a pastor in Raleigh. He responded that he was a minister as well, a C.O.G.I.C. pastor.

I asked him if he was alone. When he said yes, I told him I would be honored if he shared the table with us. He accepted readily.

When we sat down, I invited him to pray for the food. What a prayer he prayed. Then we began a comfortable conversation. He told of the events of his minister son’s premature death.

With tears in his eyes he began to slowly talk. He said, “When a woman loses a husband, Daniel Webster called her a ‘widow’. When a husband loses a wife in death, he called him a ‘widower’. When a child loses their parents he decided to called them an ‘orphan’.

“But then old Daniel Webster thought about a name for when a parent loses their child.  He thought, and he thought. But then he shook his head and said that it was impossible to come up with a name for that. It was impossible because it was just too painful.”

We both cried together.

The worried mother anxiously stood on the porch. What could be wrong? Why the delay? Her little girl was never this late in coming home from school. She knew to come straight home. Only something bad could cause a delay this long. Thirty minutes now seemed like an eternity.

Presently the mother saw her little darling coming toward the house. The little girl was wiping away tears with the back of her sleeve. Her eyes were red rimmed.

“What kept you? Why are you so late?” The words seemed to jump out of the Mother’s mouth. “And why are you crying?” The little girl tried to explain.

She said, “I was walking down the sidewalk with my friend and some mean boys rode by on bicycles and one of them knocked the porcelain doll out of her arms and it fell to the ground and broke.
The mother asked, “Is that why you are crying?”

“No,” said the little girl.
“Then why?” queried the mom.

“Well, when my friend saw her dolly was broken, she knelt down on the ground and tried to put it back together, but she couldn’t. So she just sat down and cried.”

“Is that why you’ve been crying?” the mom asked again.
“Not altogether!” was about all the child could say.
“Then why?” the mother again asked.

“When I saw that she couldn’t fix her dolly, I knelt down and tried to fix it, but I couldn’t fix it either. So I just sat down with her and cried too. That’s why I’ve been crying.”

This story illustrates how I have felt upon hearing the news of the passing of Janiver McClelland Brown, the loving wife of my cousin, Pastor Clayton Brown. I too had hoped against hope watching her struggle with cancer. I too have shed tears and felt at loss for words. Me, a minister, a man who uses words as tools, suddenly finds myself groping for something comforting to say. Words fail me.

I know that God gives comfort, peace and strength in trying times. But this time, I realize that I can’t fix anything. All I can do is just sit down and cry with you!

Janiver Brown… you leave a big hole in all of our hearts. No one can take your place. …

That’s why I was crying!

In Loving Memory of:
Janiver McClelland Brown,
December 25, 1956 – January 3, 2010