Where She Is Right Now

The lamp was already off. That is usually the end of the conversation, and both of them knew it, and neither of them was asleep.

Then, out of the dark, in a completely ordinary voice, as though asking about the weather:

"But where is she right now?"

Her father said something about heaven, because that is what comes out first, and it is true, and he had said it before.

"No. I mean right now. Like this minute. While I am here."

And there it was. Not the big question about death, which the grown-ups in that family had been carefully preparing for. A small, precise, six year old question about the present tense, at ten past eight, in the dark.

He did not have an answer with a place in it. He knew that in about a second and a half.

What he had was a photograph on the shelf, too far away to see from the pillow, and a small person waiting in the dark for a location.

So he did the only honest thing available. He said, I do not know all of it.

Then he got up, and got the photograph off the shelf, and stood it on the bedside table where she could see it lying down, and sat back on the edge of the bed.

And then he said the part he did know, which was not a place at all.

She is held. God has her, tonight, right this minute. And God has you, in this bed, at the same time.

She was quiet for a while. Then she said, "Is she alright?"

He said yes.

Then she said, "I still miss her though," and he said, so do I, and neither of those two sentences canceled the other one out.

If that is your bedroom, this is written for you, and it starts with the thing that was actually asked.

The question is smaller and harder than it sounds

A child asking where is not asking for a theology. They are asking whether the person is somewhere, because the alternative that has occurred to them, quietly, at bedtime, is that she is nowhere.

That is the fear under the question, and it is the one to answer.

And you do not answer it with geography. You cannot, and the attempt is where the trouble starts, because the more detail an adult supplies about a place, the more of it a child will test, and a small person can dismantle a description faster than any of us can build one.

I am sure that nothing at all can separate us from the love of God. Not life, not death, nothing above us, nothing below us, nothing in the whole world.Romans 8:38 and 39

That is not a location. It is a grip. And a grip is a far better answer to where than a place is, because a child understands being held long before they understand anywhere.

You are not required to produce an answer with a map in it. Romans 8:39 says nothing at all separates a person from the love of God, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land as safety rather than as information.

There are two sentences that get said in these moments with real love, and both of them do damage, so they are worth naming here where the child cannot hear them. The first makes God the one who removed her. The second makes her removal something God required. Neither is in Scripture and both leave a child with a God who takes people, which is a thing no six year old should have to hold in the dark. Say held. Say loved. Do not say why.

You were handed something far too big for one person, and it was never yours to carry on your own. Scripture says He is close to the broken hearted, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is close, tonight, to the adult on the edge of that bed as well as the child in it.

Missing her and being alright are not opposites

This is where a lot of good, kind bedtimes go slightly wrong, so it is worth being plain.

A child who says I miss her is not asking to be talked out of it. And a child who laughs at something twenty minutes later has not betrayed anybody. Both of those things are allowed in the same night, in the same hour, in the same small person, and nothing has gone wrong when they happen together.

He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.Psalm 147:3

Binds up. That is a bandage, not an erasure. The wound is real and it is dressed, and a dressed wound still belongs to the person who has it.

You have a child who is allowed to miss somebody and be alright at the same time. Psalm 147:3 says He binds up rather than deletes, and the Holy Spirit does that work at a pace that is His and not yours to hurry.

So do not tidy the missing away. If they want the photograph turned toward them, turn it. If they want to say her name eleven times, let them. Naming somebody out loud in a warm room is one of the safest things a grieving child can do.

You are not failing when the same question comes back tomorrow. His word says His mercies are new every morning, and the Spirit is the one who meets a child at whatever question they arrive with, however many times it has already been asked.

This holds whoever it is. A grandmother. A parent. A brother or a sister. The small animal that lay on the end of the bed for the whole of a child's remembering life. Nobody ranks those, and the answer does not change.