This morning, the mp3 player that powers the perpetually random assortment of music emanating from our stereo system struck up Stacey Lynn Regan's, I Offer My Isaac. Seven years after our firstborn's firstborn made his grand entrance and agonizing departure from the stage of this world, Stacey's song still has the power to stop me mid-anything and tap into deep wells of sorrow. So do In Christ Alone, which our church programs into the service with alarming frequency, heedless of the fact that one choir member can never make it all the way through the song (breaking down at "from life's first cry to final breath" if not before), and also There Were Roses, a powerful song made all the more poignant because I first heard it, around the time of Isaac's death, in the Green Linnet version—where the name of one of the protagonists is Isaac.
Music has such strange power. These songs call forth deep sobs of agonizing grief, but it is not a miserable sorrow. There may be wounds that time cannot heal, but the lively presence of Isaac's subsequent siblings is a powerful healing agent, as is the certainty that Isaac is safe in God's keeping and we will be reunited at the right time.
Without any justification for such images, other than that he was born blond, I have a definite picture of Isaac in my mind: a cross between C. S. Lewis's Prince Caspian (from the books, not the movie) and George MacDonald's Sir Gibbie; of no particular age, blond, blue-eyed, and almost always laughing.
Here's to our firstborn grandchild, with joyful sorrow, on his birthday.Hmmm. That same mp3 player just came up with the most beautiful, most haunting, most meaningful rendition of I heard the Voice of Jesus Say (aka Star of the County Down), which I first heard, live, seven years ago Monday, shortly after Isaac died.
Perhaps it is related to my random signature generator which seems to often come up with relevant signatures.
