I don’t know – I wrote several posts about Thomas Bickle when he was sick and when he died of a brain tumor. I guess if you type his name into the search function on this page, you will them. I have been thinking about him lately, maybe because it’s Christmas or perhaps because his light on my porch burned out and I’m in the process of getting a new bulb.
One of the topics his mother, Sarah Bickle, wrote about was a reference to Elizabeth McCracken’s memoir called This Does Not Have to be a Secret. It is about a stillbirth in a French hospital and a not quite right translation that ended up as the dwarves of grief. I thought I’d like to re-read it and looked for it among my posts but it wasn’t there. So I looked back at the blog Sarah had for Thomas and found it HERE.
Obviously, writing about Thomas now does not seem like a cheerful Christmas post, but thinking back about what I know of Thomas, I found myself warmed by the amount of love that surrounded that little carrot-top.
Hard to believe that it’s been so long since Thomas waved goodbye.
Now I think God has a huge sense of humor. I mean have you really looked at people? We are downright hilarious. I always think of it though that God looks at us as a parent looks at that newborn baby… just perfect and beautiful and sweet…. and then 15 years later when you look at those newborn photos you think… wow, that was a funny looking kid.
I think Christmas needs those moments of depression, I mean would the highs be high if the lows weren’t there?