“Life is robbery.”
I re-read this Alfred North Whitehead quotation to my students in the last weeks as we read through Adventures of Ideas. We were taking a welcome break from the philosophically demanding Process and Reality.
I explained that this is one of Whitehead’s more frequently cited sentences because he succinctly and poetically describes his position that life entails loss, and you can’t go back and get what you lose.
I said the same thing to one of my girlfriends as we chatted in my kitchen a couple of weeks ago. I was cooking and catching up with a friend I had not seen in nearly twenty years. As we chronicled our lives from the intervening decades, my friend said: “I have a religious question.”
In moments like these, I curse the fact that even my closest friends think that I have some special kind of knowledge as a minister and professional theologian. I took a deep breath because that phrase usually precedes some difficult, heart-wrenching question that has no satisfying answer.
“Sure,” I replied.
My friend began to talk about some difficult events in her past, and some of what she lost as she wrestled with her own challenges. “Do you think,” she asked me, “that we can go back and get what we lost? Do we get a second chance?”
I turned into a Whiteheadian and told her that we can’t go back in time. We can’t reach back and wrest out what has been lost. Sometimes that is good because this is how we can move past – and even eliminate – some of the worst things in the world. But when we lose things we’d rather not have lost, we don’t get them back. I echoed my teaching moment by saying, “That’s why the philosopher I study says, ‘Life is robbery.’ ”
But we get second chances. And third and fourth ones. God never stops calling us. As we move forward, there are new opportunities. It’s not the same, but we get more chances – often in ways we don’t expect.
I know it didn’t make her feel any better.
We were quiet for awhile and continued cleaning the kitchen and stirring the pot of soup together. We broke the silence by moving to discussions of our future. We talked about how we might live, love and grow. We laughed about how we were closer to being parents than kids and how that transition sneaked up on us. Then she asked the question I often hear these days:
“So what do you want? A boy or a girl.”
I paused. After miscarrying, I’ve come to understand the answer I’ve often heard others say: “I just want a healthy baby.” But I didn’t say that. Perhaps it was the length of our acquaintance, the comfort of the kitchen or the recent evocation of Whitehead that made me tell her the truth.
“I want my babies back!”
It’s been five months since my partner and I saw the bleep on the ultrasound. In the four months after that, I saw my OB/GYN, hematologist, nurses and anesthesiologist more times than I’d ever wanted to. While I have an intellectual level of gratitude for trustworthy practitioners, good health coverage and supportive friends, none of it actually gets me what I want. I want the twins the doctor mentioned under his breath from the space between my legs. I want the babies that my partner kept kissing in a place a little higher on my stomach than where they really were, kissing from the moment we realized my period was late. I want the babies about whom I called my mother – even before the official test came back. I want the growing belly, nausea, maternity clothes and upcoming parental leave.
I deeply believe what I told my friend about second chances, but right now, that means nothing. Grief renders hope philosophical. Grief smothers my ability to think, reason and plan. Since my honest moment in the kitchen, grief has robbed my life of a measure of joy. Life broke into the house of my body and soul and took something that cannot be recovered. There’s no one to blame. It just happens sometimes. And I’ll cry about it … I guess, until I don’t.
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I
am sorry for the loss of the manifestation of your dreams and hopes – your
child. I can only sit with you in your pain.
It
was 7 years ago this month that I loss a set of twins and 4 other
pregnancies prior to that. Life does rob us and there is no one to
blame. I am now divorced and have no children but this is not a sad
story, not at all, it is only part of my story. I have learned much about
myself as I have lived my life and have learned to smile and even laugh in
spite of life’s misfortunes. I have indeed seen brand new mercies and God
still at work in my life even and especially during the grief. I
hope the same for you.
And
yes, sometimes I cry until I don’t. I guess that is part of Life.
Yes, this is part of our stories. I’m still in the place where it is a sad story, but I imagine it won’t always be that way. Thank you for your testimony.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I, too, have struggled with fertility issues and continue to walk the journey of trying to get pregnang. I will not belabor my story as this is about your story, your grief, and your awakenings. It is in reading your blogs that I am able to feel less isolated and alone as I endure this season of my life’s journey. Peace and grace to you.
*pregnant*
Thank you for sharing this much of your story. It does make me feel less alone as well.
Life is robbery. I guess no one understood this better than Job. It seems that the author wants us to believe that after recouping all the material possessions and the births of his other children, everything was right again. I find the ending of the book unsatisfying because we have no idea how he was able to move pass the pain, if he thought of his dead children, if he ever had flashbacks of the old pain, what were the subtle changes that such a profound grief had on his personality, was their a hint of sadness that lingered in his movements, did he get a faraway look in his eyes at the strangest times. Life is robbery, and the theif is so stealthy that sometimes we may never know all that we have lost only that something is missing and it’s gone forever. I am so sorry for your loss.
I have the same thoughts about the story of Job! I do at least appreciate that the Bible gives us a story that raises the issues so we can have real talk about it.
Thank you for these insightful comments. I’ve often been troubled when I hear preachers proclaim “God is going to give you back everything the devil stole from you.” I often respond with the following, “if the devil took it, let the devil keep it!” I want something new. A new opportunity, a new mind, a new heart, etc.,
Also, I so appreciate your introdcing me to “Postmodern Womanist Theology” and the work of Alfred North Whitehead. I’ve used your work in my D.Min. Thesis I’m working on-“Postmodern Womanist Homiletics and Pedagogy as a Methodological Praxis for Resurrecting the Murdered Souls of Prostituted and other Marginalized Women.”
Irie
I agree. We can’t get back what is lost – whether it was the devil who took it or some other means of loss. I’m also glad you like “Making a Way Out of No Way” and that it was helpful in your DMin work. If you don’t mind, will you post a positive review on Amazon? http://amzn.to/rGNnar
I’m so sorry for your loss, thank you for sharing…i want my babies back too, all three of them!
Thank you for sharing your desire as well. And I understand . . .
cry and cry out, if you must, and sometimes you will. your babies are here, they are with you, in God’s time of before, now and after, they are alive in your soul, they live in your breath, name them, hold them, and watch them grow. you are mother, teacher, lover and friend…do not let them go easily into the dark, with the spirit of your divine keystroke write their stories, in my belief, they live every time you speak of them, my Sister Sis, speak, speak of and out, and know that you are not alone in your grief, for i speak for those whose hearts once beat within me. as cheng said it is sin to deny any part of your identity, i have sinned in denial of reality, we are saved in knowing…we take back what has been robbed as we acknowledge loss, one day we will be healed…i wait expectantly for that day…hope
“But we get second chances. And third and fourth ones. God never stops calling us. As we move forward, there are new opportunities. It’s not the same, but we get more chances – often in ways we don’t expect.” God is definitely a God of second chances, so I am still hopeful for that in your own life. I am definitely a living witness! Thanks for sharing. I know that this is a sensitive subject matter, but it is worth sharing so that others may heal along their journey as well.
I think it depends on what you lost. Some things you lose forever. Some things you lose temporarily. Some things aren’t things at all–they are peace of mind, courage, strength, perseverance.
Wow, what a powerful and honest post. I woke up thinking just that, how I got robbed yesterday because I had PMS on my 40th birthday and I was weepy and blue all day and this fed my addiction and I struggled with that and for the first time in my life, I decided not to go out for New Years Eve/my birthday because I was so tired from my illness with Fibromyalgia, but I rallied and went to an early dinner with my husband only to eat something that didn’t agree with me and spent the last 4 hours of 2011 (and my birthday) over the toilet bowl. Robbed. But I know better. I’ve never been a pessimist and so I thought about how I actually for the first time in my life celebrated my birthday the day before New Year’s Eve and I did get to have a birthday even if it wasn’t on the actual day. We can’t go back, but nor do we get this moment right now back. I say we find the silver lining and enjoy the now. Thanks, Monica for your thoughtful post.