While in Birmingham, Alabama, I find myself here on a regular basis. Just outside of the 16th…read moreStreet Baptist Church is a statue of four young girls at play. For those unfamiliar, the 16th Street Baptist Church is forever etched in history by a heartbreaking moment in time. It was a moment in the midst of the civil rights movement when a bomb exploded within the church, killing four young girls who were in the church at choir practice.
As a parent who has lost a child, I understand how fleeting life can be, sadly all too often heartbreakingly fleeting, and I understand how precious of a gift life truly is.
These girls were robbed of so much that lay before them. They would never know the joy of having children of their own, they missed so many if the highs and lows that define the adventure of life. They would never realize the culmination of a complete life. And for what? Hatred, a blind hatred and fear of a changing world.
That does not mean they died in vain. Their lives were cut short, but in that short time, they left their mark upon this world. When my son died, I was lost and a part of me was dead beside him, but I realize that his life was not defined in his final moments, but instead Tyler's life was defined every day that he lived.
Today I stood before this statue of four young girls, who, had they lived, they would be elderly women today. I stood before this statue and mourned the days and milestones they would never see. I whispered to the wind, I hope they knew happiness in their few years here and I hope that whatever awaits beyond, they are there looking down at a world they never got to see come to this fruition. Mostly, I wish those girls peace in that beyond, that their spirits not mourn for what was stolen from them, but for all they had in their few years. And I hope in that great beyond my son is seeing me as a man struggling to be what I wish he could have seen me as while he was here.
