By Gary Holland

Easter is a time for Christians when we celebrate hope. Hope, that like

Christ, we too will rise up after death and see our loved ones again, with

no more sadness. Only joy.

The following story is true. It is an event that is sad but to this day gives me

hope…the message of Easter. It is a letter I wrote to my daughter Alaina

when she was small.

Hi, beautiful daughter.

This morning I felt sleepy as I was reading. I

closed my eyes for a while and soon started

dreaming about your brother Xiwang, who died

some years ago. I dreamed about what it would

be like when I saw him again. I imagined our

reunion, holding him in my arms and never let-

ting him go again…forever.

Then you came into the dream.

I remembered that when you were just two or

three years old your brother was born; what we

call a miscarriage. He was born about 5 months

too early, being only about 4 months old inside

of his mom.

It happened just a few weeks before Easter.

I’d rushed his mom to the hospital and in the

room found him on the floor. A nurse helped me to pick him up and I took him to a small room,

where we could be alone. I’d never felt so alone.

I held him in my hand, stretched out about as long as my hand, with perfectly formed arms, legs,

fingers, toes, eyes, nose, and ears. Everything was there. He was so light and fragile. He appeared

asleep. I cried, and tried to pray. But I couldn’t feel God. I felt so alone and lost. I called my mom

and dad. We cried together. Again I was alone and feeling lost in the sadness. It was a difficult

day.

A few days later I named your brother XiWang, which means “Hope” In Chinese. Hope was all I

had after losing my baby. I would rather have lost my own life, than lose my child. That’s how par-

ents think when they experience the blessing of children in their lives and then the horror of losing

them.

Later that week we buried him. You came with me, and Xiwang was in a little oriental box that

you’d helped me to select from the import store. It was about 3x10 inches in size. My friend, Father

Simeon did the burial service there, in the sun on the grassy hill. My friends who came are still my

friends, now about 10 years later and your aunt Susan and Simeon are in Heaven. I miss them.

I cried. Everyone cried. You fell asleep in my arms. It was your nap time.

When the service was finished everyone said how sorry they were and they all left. Then you woke

up.

You said “Where is he?” “Where is Xiwang, I want to see him!” You were adamant about seeing

him, almost yelling at me. I argued with you, trying to tell you how dried up his skin had become,

and how I didn’t want you to be scared.

Eventually you were happy knowing that you could hold the little box with Xiwang in it. We knelt

down alone next to the little grave and prayed, holding him in his little box. The prayers didn’t

really help me much. I just felt alone. I felt lost.

I couldn’t stop crying. After a while you went walking, looking at the flowers on the other baby’s

graves, put there by their families who had come to see them.

When I finally opened my eyes, you were next to me again. You said “here, daddy, these are for

Xiwang.” You handed me a bouquet of flowers. I felt proud that such a little child could be thinking

about her little brother.

But… I looked around and realized with alarm that you had robbed the flowers from the other

baby’s graves! One does not do that in a graveyard. I felt horrified.

I thought their parents or maybe even God would be upset. Those parents missed their babies just as

much as I did, I’m sure.

I looked around to see whether the groundskeeper had seen you take the flowers. I thought about

quickly returning the flowers, but instead, I began to feel warm inside. There’s a feeling I get occa-

sionally when I know God is doing something in my life. I felt it in Haiti, visiting Mother Teresa’s

hospices for the dying children. And I felt it in Vietnam at the orphanages, when holding the chil-

dren.

I was now feeling it again.

There’s a phrase in the Bible where Jesus tells us to “be like little children,” meaning to be trusting

of Him, knowing that like the birds of the air or the flowers in the field, He will take care of us if we

give our trust to Him, simply, like a child.

I said, “Where did you get those flowers, Alaina?” You pointed to about four graves that you’d

robbed.

You giggled. Then I giggled. And I think Xiwang probably giggled, along with a few million angels

above us. Can you imagine a million angels giggling?

I had felt so deeply alone, as one does when some terrible thing happens to us.

We wonder where God is. We don’t know how to live anymore, especially after losing a child, the

light of our life. We may wonder why we should go on living. Even with my beautiful daughter

there, climbing in my lap as I knelt on the grass, I still felt alone. I didn’t know what to do with my

life.

But then God let me know He was with me in a special way-- that only He could have devised. He

gave me some bright pink and yellow flowers. And the messenger He used was a little girl named

Alaina. Just like one night in Haiti in 1997, after holding dying babies all day long at Mother

Theresa’s hospice there, again my tears of sadness turned to tears of happiness. Hope came back to

me like a silent bird in the air. It quietly landed on my heart.

You were the one God used to bring hope back to your father.

Then, as if your job was done and it was time to move on, you said, “Let’s go, I’m hungry.”

“Ok,” I said, feeling a strange happiness in that sad place.

You raised your hands in the air.

I picked you up and hugged you to my heart.

Alaina, you’re my angel.

Love you,

Daddy