LUCY'S FAREWELL
／Hsiao-Ching
Lucy had cancer. When she was only six years old, her parents took her from their home in Indiana to the famous Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. There she died and it was there that her parents had to make the difficult decision of what to do with her body.
My friend Kirk's daughter was at the same hospital and had spent several weeks with Lucy and her family. The difference was, Kirk's daughter lived to return home. Lucy wasn't so lucky.
So as they stood that morning in the parking lot of the hospital, the two couples prayed together and parted their ways. It didn't seem unusual that two cars were pulling away and heading home. However, it was a very unusual sight.
For Kirk, as he fixed his eyes on Lucy's car passing him, asked God for special grace upon that vehicle. He stared at the back of that oldsmobile for as long as he was able, with tears streaming down his cheeks.
Kirk thought, "I wonder how many people will know."He feared that at every stop light that turns green, where they may hesitate to react, city taxi horns may blare at them. In the highway if they shift to the right lane too slow, others may not have patience. He hoped that in each toll booth operator they would encounter for change, he or she may be polite, for how many people will be sensitive to Lucy's parents and their sorrow?
Who will know that on that morning of Lucy's farewell, her parents had chosen to carry her body home with them, in the trunk of their family car.
How many people will we meet today, that may have a loved one in their trunk? How many will carry much pain and grief with them, hidden behind a face of a sales person, a boy bagging groceries, a policeman who has just written you a ticket?
Let us be sensitive, forgiving, and loving. For one of these days it will be our turn and we will be driving through town with our trunk full.
