Kindly friends came to comfort and sympathise. But it was of little use. They had not lost their boy. They could not understand. They bade her be proud that he had died in a noble cause—that he had died to save another. They told her that time would bring a blessed easing to her pain. They told her she must bow to God's mysterious will.
Ah! what is the use of it? How can any outsider intermeddle in the pain of a mother whose boy has just been killed?
Not all the talking since Adam
Can make death to be other than death.
* * * * *
God help us all if there were no better comfort for a tortured world in this hour of its bitterest need—to "make death to be other than death."
* * * * *
She was a brave woman. She faced the issue clearly. She talked with wise friends. She came back to her prayers. She recalled and relearned the teaching of her Bible and her church which had lain hazily in memory till her need arose. And gradually God's blessed comfort came to her "as to one whom his mother comforteth." Slowly peace came to her heart, and in spite of her pain life became worth living again…. He was a good boy. He loved his God. He loved his mother. He had his faults, but she could trust Christ with them. She had had high ambitions for him. Her ambitions came back.
She learned to think of him in the wondrous new adventure, living a full conscious life, thinking and remembering, growing and becoming fitted for the eternal Heaven that is still in front. She believed that the high promise of his boyhood might be fulfilled after all, and that she might one day see it.
Life is still very desolate without him; but she believes that he lives and knows, that he is growing and going on—that he remembers her and loves her as never before, that he is waiting for her, perhaps watching over her as in his days on earth, even though he cannot write home. And trustfully, gratefully she remembers him in her prayers. She thinks that the Heavenly Father is not likely to forget what a mother says to Him about her son.
* * * * *