I had the privilege to be a part of a holy moment today and it had nothing to do with me at all. I was helping run the Amnesty club over the lunch hour and there are 5 amazing grade 9 girls who are mature beyond their years. Only today, there were just 4. The 4 girls were texting the 5th, who had just come home from Winnipeg. She was to start chemo treatments as her cancer had returned. There are many things that make me want to scream out against injustice, but disease is close to the top of the list, if not #1 most days. How unjust is it that kids and innocent people have their bodies ravaged by disease?
A text came and as the message was relayed between the girls, the mood changed from laughter to solemn. . .it said that, even though stopping treatment means that she was given 2 - 3 months to live, that was the decision that was made. And then there was silence. . .
I wanted to say something to comfort her friends, but no words seemed right. I have never experienced what they are experiencing, and even if I had, it just didn't seem the time. They started writing notes to her and it was utterly quiet for about 15 minutes. It was holy - I had a lump in my throat and had to hold back my tears. And then, given the purpose of the group, they continued signing online petitions to fight injustice around the world. It was almost as if they understood that they couldn't fix their friend, but they certainly had a chance to fix other things in our world and they weren't going to let this moment pass them by.
Grief is such a hard thing is sit in, and it also hard to walk alongside others who are grieving. But if I had not experienced grief today, I would not have experienced the holy moment either - they go hand-in-hand.
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