Just another moment in your eyes
I’ll see you in another life
In Heaven!
Where we never say goodbye!
Now that it’s over
I just want to hold her
I’d give up all the world to see
That little piece of Heaven lookin’ back at me

Suffering does not have the final word

Today is a very special day. It is a day of remembering the person who not only gave me life, but who shaped me into the person I am today. My parent. My teacher. My spiritual support. My best friend. February will mark five years since her untimely passing, and while the pain of her loss never fades, I have come to accept that I will not see her again in this life. While I may not see her, her presence remains with me to this day. I wanted to write a post today in loving memory of my greatest supporter. Happy birthday, Mom.

Mom passed when I was eighteen. She had been diagnosed with stage four liver cancer the previous summer and given, at best, a few weeks to live. I had just become an adult, and thus, there are many stories of hers that I never heard. From what I do know, she had a tumultuous life. Her parents divorced at an early age. She had a physically abusive first husband before marrying my father, a drunk (not a term I use lightly) who neglected her very existence. She loved James, her last husband and my other “parent,” although he tried everything in his power to turn his children against her, for no apparent reason. Like me, she struggled with mental health disorders and substance abuse early in life. And she passed due to a deadly, progressive illness.

These are just some of the highlights I either heard or witnessed firsthand. She was certainly no saint, but she modeled the image of Christ more so than any person I have ever known. You would have never assumed she was the subject of so much travesty. She radiated the love of her savior daily, something very few churchgoers can do. She gave up her profession to homeschool her twelve children. She was actively involved in the community, and everyone who knew her can acknowledge that she touched their life in one way or another. She always wore the brightest smile and illuminated any room she entered with her caring and gentle spirit.

Lucy

Christmas was my mother’s favorite holiday and she truly exhibited the spirit of Christmas each year. When I was ten, she gave me what I still consider to be the greatest Christmas gift I have ever received. It was a copy of Skillet’s album, Awake. I had just discovered Skillet that year and they had quickly become my favorite band. I credit them for my love of rock and metal, and equally my interest in faith. Mom strictly enforced a Christian household and, as such, secular music (with few exceptions) was prohibited. When I learned that Christians could rock, it changed my world. She admired my interest and gave me the album late that Christmas night.

At the beginning of this post, I included lyrics to one of the most important songs in my life. Skillet’s song Lucy, the closing track on Awake, broke my heart the first time I heard it. It is a sad song, and while I did not fully understand its meaning at the time, it stuck with me. Accordingly, the song is about a young couple who were soon to become parents. However, out of fear and financial instability, the couple decided to terminate the pregnancy. Soon afterwards, the couple experienced extreme regret and guilt and were told to treat the procedure as a death in the family. They held a funeral service, purchased a headstone, and named the aborted child Lucy.¹

Little did I know until years later that I was almost a Lucy. My mother had given birth to nine children, she was forty-five when she was pregnant with me, and the doctor told her it was highly unlikely that I would be born without down syndrome. The doctors recommended abortion. However, my mother was one of the staunchest pro-lifers I have ever known, and determined that she would not go through with an abortion. To this day, while my political views may differ, on a personal level, I will always be pro-life for this reason.

But there is more to the story of the impact this song made for my mother and me. While I do not know the full story, I know that my mother struggled with a variety of mental health disorders and substance abuse in her teenage years. She was admitted to a notorious mental health clinic in central Georgia during the late sixties/early seventies. There are horror stories about this particular clinic. When we think of a 1950s American style insane asylum, the hospital my mother was at truly lives up to the stereotype. While she was there, she had one good doctor by the name of Jack, I believe. Jack allegedly wrote an account of his time at this hospital, which included meeting my mother. For purposes of anonymity, he refrained from using her real name. He called her Lucy.

After sharing Skillet’s song with my mother a few weeks after that Christmas, apparently she told one of my older siblings about how much the song touched her heart. I never heard the entire story about what happened in her time at Central State, but the untold story holds a special place in my heart. Having been admitted to a rehabilitation center in 2021 and a crisis unit only a few months ago, the story only becomes more special to me. While it is true that mental health and substance abuse disorders are largely genetic, I do not see this negatively. I see this as hope. I see that my loving mother survived tremendous suffering, and it never broke her. It shaped her into being the loving, caring mother everyone knew.

Of course, when my mother passed, the song took on yet another meaning for me. It was my anthem of hope. It was my reminder that though her body lost life, her spirit lives within me. As painful as it is to hear the song now, it is a bittersweet pain. The tears that fall each time I hear “Lucy” are not bad tears. They are tears of sadness, but they are even more tears of love. They are tears of reassurance that my mother lives on, and the end of her life on earth is not the end of my life with her. And each time I hear it, I am reminded of the strength my mother possessed.

She used her weaknesses to become strong. She rejected the status quo and lived as a true Jesus Freak. She did not sit idly in the church. She did not force dogma down the throats of others. She did not act superior to those who disagreed with her. She embraced the model of Christ in the Gospels: a person characterized by loving the outcasts and stepping on the toes of the self-righteous. She did not live a wonderful life, but she would never admit to this. She was grateful for her life, both the good and the bad. When she received the news that she had cancer, she boldly proclaimed that her savior had never let her down.

A reflection of hope

As the years have passed, I know that there are many areas in which my mother and I would not see eye-to-eye. My political views have become more progressive (though, I align myself dead center and quite simply despise politics). I do not attend church. I do not interpret the Bible as perfect or living. I almost completely dismiss Christianity as yet another organized religion. I still hold many “Christian” beliefs and place my faith in the God of Bible and his son, but I am not the churchgoing Christian I was five years ago. Despite these changes, I know that my mother would still love me the way she did when she walked this earth. And I know that one day, I will see her again.

When I reflect on my mother’s life and the few years I had with her, I am reminded of my destiny. I am reminded that in all things, I should exhibit nothing less than love. I must be bold in my beliefs, and not merely talk about them, but live them out. My mother redefined the churchgoing Christian, I believe. While she was adamant about attending church services, she understood that church is scripturally an activity done outside the walls of the church. It is about making an impact. It is about loving others, regardless of what they believe in or who they are. It is about striving to address the problem, rather than becoming part of the problem.

Since my mother’s diagnosis, now over five years ago, the problem of suffering has been at the heart of everything I believe and do. But what confounds me is the way my mother approached the problem. She did not use her illness, or the pain she experienced in her life, to lose faith. She embraced the pain and used it to further her faith. Her suffering did not discredit her beliefs. While the question of “Why, God?” undoubtedly plagued her mind, she maintained forward momentum towards glory. Even in her darkest days, she knew her calling to love others with every fiber of her being. And it radiated with every person she encountered.

Five long years without her. And while I cannot deny that I miss her each and every day, I know that her spirit lives within me. It lives within each of her children, and the countless lives she touched in 64 years. Those who knew her will never forget her. Her legacy lives on and will continue to do so. And I know that we will meet again someday.

Until that day, I love you mom. Happy birthday. I am signing off now to go celebrate and remember her with a bowl of pistachio ice cream.

1. Nate Carlson and John Cooper, “Music | The meaning behind the song ‘Lucy’ by Skillet,” November 22, 2010, Ramblings of the Village Idiot. Retrieved from https://www.natecarlson.com/2010/11/22/the-meaning-behind-the-song-lucy-by-skillet/.

Meet Dusty. That’s the name of the cat in the picture at the beginning of this entry. Our family, particularly my mother and older brother Josh, adopted Dusty in January of 2016. He was a gift to my younger brother, Cameron. I can recall the day Cameron received his gift. I remember finding Elvis Presley’s song “Rock-a-Hula Baby” to be one of my all-time favorite songs. I remember, at the time, not knowing the value pets have and the impact they can make on a person. 

I have never owned a pet. When I began studying theology and found my focus in the problem of suffering, I read C.S. Lewis’ classic work The Problem of Pain. There is a section in the book dedicated to the problem of animal suffering. Admittedly, I skipped this portion of the book. I admit, I discarded the problem of animal suffering because it did not seem to be as important as the problem of human suffering. And while I would certainly strive to prevent the suffering of a child over that of an animal, this problem has resurfaced in my mind in recent weeks.

Josh and I, along with his four cats (taking proper ownership of Dusty), moved into an apartment three years ago this month. That summer, a year after losing my mother to liver cancer, I had begun to develop an appreciation for pets. This only continued to develop after moving. I would like to take a moment to write on each of these cats. Majesty, the oldest, was gifted to Josh when he was about 13. I remember going to pick her up from the shelter. Lucky, a petite black cat, I found while camping at my childhood friend and neighbor’s home at the age of nine. Dusty came into the picture seven years later. Lastly, Sporty was a rescue and taken in by Josh and my mother, just a year before she passed.

Living with these cats and seeing them each day, I quickly came to love each of them. Lucky was always my buddy, since I found her years prior. I was not mature enough at the time, nor was I years later, to care for and protect her. Josh welcomed her with Majesty and took wonderful care of them both. Even after moving, when the other three cats were, frankly, hesitant of me, Lucky demonstrated a love for me that I could never understand. Lucky and Majesty crossed the rainbow bridge in 2021, only months after I initially recovered from alcoholism. Even then, I did not know how important these cats were to my life and how much they shaped me and showed me a love comparable to the love of my mother.

Dusty. Dusty passed away on August 20th, 2023. The cat in the picture above has, like Majesty and Lucky, crossed the rainbow bridge. Seeing this loving cat suffer, and Josh as a result, I began to reevaluate the problem of animal suffering I had skipped over a few years ago. I have come to the conclusion that, regardless of identification as a species, all living beings suffer. And it is our responsibility to care for them, to love them, and to cherish them for the value they serve in our lives. 

Suffering is inevitable. Suffering is a problem. And suffering cannot be avoided, but it can be mitigated. I have wrote extensively on the church’s belief that all suffering is caused by human evil. But while human evil plays a role in the problem of suffering, it cannot explain everything. BioLogos is a controversial organization for supporting the concept of theistic evolution. I learned about the organization while studying at the fundamentalist, evangelical school Liberty University, where I earned my Bachelor’s. Regarding the problem of animal suffering, I came across a post that says this: 

Some of the suffering and evil in the world is clearly the result of human sin: genocide, rape, and countless other acts of evil. These are sometimes called “moral evils” because they are caused by our intentional actions. As such we have moral responsibility for them. Such evils are very difficult for us to experience, but are not as problematic to reconcile with a good Creator, since they are caused by us, not by God.¹

The problem is, the church views this as the only answer to the problem of suffering. However, Dusty was loved and cared for, tremendously, by Josh. I learned to love this cat. Human evil played no role, whatsoever, in what came to be. Cancer is a disease; it is one that I absolutely despise and wish to eradicate completely. And while there are trashy humans who mistreat animals, there is more to the story. Animals suffer; humans suffer; every living being, created in God’s image or not, suffers. To say this is all the result of sin simply aggravates me. Or, to say that suffering is meaningless because we are all “dust in the wind” is heartless. The church is wrong. There is evil in this world that exists beyond the confounds of sin and human nature.

I cannot say why animals suffer. I cannot say why humans suffer. There are many debatable reasons, each contingent upon specific circumstances. Circumstances that you and I may never even know. What I have learned in my experience with suffering is that suffering cannot simply be rationalized. To have a purely logical, Platonic explanation for the problem of suffering, one must be a psychopath. There are many Christians who “know” how to solve the problem of suffering. There are many opponents to Christianity who “know” the problem cannot be solved. 

But how can a loving Christian tell a parent who has lost their child in a vehicle accident that they are suffering because of their choices? How can an atheist tell a passionate theist that there is no point as to why their best friend died of cancer and God’s will thus will not prevail? In the face of such extreme losses, logic is tossed out the window. It is forgotten. And it should be.

In my earnest belief, life is about finding beauty in the rage, as I have discussed before. The loss of Dusty was tremendous and I would do anything to reverse it. But I see the beauty that lies in my brother’s hope. It lies in the constant care he provided, that he gave this cat a wonderful life, and in the midst of his suffering, drove to another state twice in one day to give him the best care possible. This beauty does not remove the tragedy, but it makes the burden much more bearable.

Yes, sometimes we suffer because we have made bad decisions. Sometimes we suffer because people are just inherently evil. Sometimes our pets suffer, and we suffer as a result. Sometimes we suffer for no reason at all. And sometimes we suffer so that we can learn to better appreciate and cherish life. There are countless other “sometimes.” No living creature is “dust in the wind” because each soul contributes to the beauty of life. And each soul has value that is magnified by the love and care shown to them, as I have seen with Dusty. What matters most is that we have faith in what we cannot see, hope in what could come, and love for who and what is important to us.

Rest in peace, Dusty Bear. You will not be forgotten.

1. BioLogos, “Is Animal Suffering Part of God’s Good Creation?” Retrieved from https://biologos.org/common-questions/is-animal-suffering-part-of-gods-good-creation.