You Will Be Happy Again: A Memoir

By Clare Robert

When a minister learns that her son has a fatal illness she discovers that just about everything she thought she knew about God had to be discarded. New insights didn't come from complex theological formulas, but from the experience of facing the unimaginable. And by telling the truth of how ha

• Language: English
• Publisher: CGR Books
• Release date: Jan 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9780578991573

Clare Robert

Rev. Clare Robert is an authorized minister in the United Church of Christ. She holds a Master of Sacred Theology from Yale Divinity School.In 1973, as a young Roman Catholic woman, Clare felt called to ordained ministry and began her theological studies with the Jesuits in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She completed a Master of Divinity degree at Interfaith Metropolitan Theological Education in Washington, D.C. and did further graduate work in Geneva, Switzerland and Lyon, France.Clare has served three churches in Connecticut as associate pastor and is currently Chaplain at The Spring Glen Church in Hamden.

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You Will Be

Happy Again

You Will Be Happy Again

a memoir

Clare Robert

copyright © 2021 clare robert.

Cover and book design by Scout James

Drawing by Valentin Tournier

Author photo by Judy Sirota Rosenthal

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

ebook isbn 978-0-578-99157-3

CGR Books

Originally printed as An Off the Common Book, Amherst, Massachusetts

printed in the united states of america

print isbn 978-1-951928-31-5

For the children and families

touched by illness and loss.

In Memory of Nathanael Robert

February 1, 1984 – October 30, 2008

Introduction

My sermon is percolating. This week the appointed reading from the Gospel of Mark is about the healing power of Jesus. What can I say about a story that touches me in a personal way and therefore poses a problematic choice?

I am tempted to honor convention and take the easy way out—to declare that the Son of God heard the cries of the ailing and cured them—to preach the gospel as it stands, literally, and offer comfort and reassurance, holding out a kind of hope that some want to be true and need to be true.

At Sunday worship, when we collect the prayer card requests so that they can be read aloud, the desire for a total cure is written in invisible ink. For we know that medicine can only do so much. But we wish for more, for my brother with a rare illness, for my sister diagnosed with late stage cancer, for my friend, my co-worker. And as I pray with my parishioners in the hope of an answer, a solution, I also know that God is not on tap to respond to all petitions. Surely some will be disappointed. So I cannot say, unequivocally, that a cure will come, that a miracle will save the ailing.

If I craft a more challenging view, one that requires me to look at my own evolution on the subject of healing, I risk sharing my own disappointment with God. I am the mother of a boy full of wonder and innocence who at the age of eight contracted a serious illness, and who, despite my years of supplication, suffered the hardships of disability and died sixteen years later. My story might be disquieting to some and perhaps even rejected, for it is hard to give up the hope of divine intervention and miraculous events, especially when the need is great. I know. I’ve been there. When Nathanael was ill, if my own pastor had discouraged my fervent prayers, I likely would have reacted with anger or denial. In the thick of the storm, one needs a port of calling—to God. Now, I have come to believe in the healing power of Jesus but the meaning of that phrase is almost totally different from what I thought when Nathanael was first diagnosed.

And I must address the questions that remain underground: In Mark’s Gospel, the mother-in-law of the disciple Peter was healed and got up right away and was well enough to serve a meal to the disciples. Surely some congregants are apt to ask, sotto voce, Why am I still sick? or Why did my wife die? We prayed and believed and hoped for a cure. Why didn’t God answer me in my need?

I travel this world of pastoring in the United Church of Christ as one who knows a deep loss that forced me to question God's purpose. So when I look out at my congregation of 150 people filling the pews of our sanctuary with its white-washed walls and translucent windows, the only symbol a large cross behind the pulpit, I must choose my words carefully. No false promises or simple solutions will satisfy these well-educated, well-traveled parishioners. Yet they, like me, hope for divine intervention and to be assured of God’s power. How do I speak to these contradictions that I have inhabited for so many years?

I know the anxiety of the sufferers. I know what it’s like to wait for test results and the terror that comes when the news is bad and there are no medical options. I carry these memories into each counseling encounter even if I seldom refer to what my family endured, or mention the name Nathanael. From the pulpit, I look out at folks with their own problems and woes, some with anguish visible on their faces, and others who seem to maintain the upbeat demeanor now so demanded by the high priests of positive thinking.

I know that both of these groups often express a steadfast faith that God is with them through their ordeal, but I could never do that when Nathanael was sick. I was one who raged against that fate and felt abandoned by God. At the same time, the questions I asked during those years—Why? and How could this be happening?—led me to pursue a lifelong dream of ordination. I now realize that even when I felt that there was no hope, I was forging a path toward a different way of thinking about God, no longer the Santa Claus fixer but the One worth struggling with, ever present in my intellectual and emotional quest.

This story also shows that as Jesus begins his ministry, he must contend with human bodily and mental suffering, and as he does so he gets worn out. Even the Son of God becomes overwhelmed by all the needs around him. He has to escape the horde that follows him in order to regroup. And then, steadfast, says, "Let’s go on to Jerusalem for this is why I came."

It’s enough of a point to carry my talk, but will it lift any who are dealing with some of the worst that life can offer? This week’s sermon demands an answer to why some are healed, and others are not.

~

Ministry has taught me that others have hard lives, seemingly harder than my own. But they are often the ones who remark that I have suffered more than they have. I worry that my self-disclosure may seem to discount their pain. After all, it is often said that the loss of a child is the worst loss of all. Each time, to remind them and myself, I have to say, You can’t compare suffering.

My people—in fact, all people—carry heavy burdens and deep wounds. When I pray for them, restating what they have told me and offering my re-phrasings to God, often they respond with tears or sighs too deep for words. I am honored that they allow me to enter into their pain.

I hope and pray that my difficulties have made me more compassionate and understanding, but I don’t believe that Nathanael’s illness was sent for that purpose. Still, it would have been a missed opportunity of powerful proportions not to have learned something from those years, and at least now I can offer this story so that others can see that it is possible to find a way through—even when you are sure that you can’t.

~

One day in 2011, a church member handed me an article from Connecticut Magazine about religious healing. The writer, Lary Bloom, had interviewed one of my fellow Congregationalists, the Reverend David Spollett, about his unorthodox view of spiritual healing. I was intrigued since it isn’t often that a pastor is willing to go public with doubts about the efficacy of prayer, or to challenge what has come to be gospel truth that a positive attitude will lead to the cure of illness. Spollett had voiced this view in a letter to The New York Times. He wrote:

While it is true that optimism and positive thinking cannot overcome illness, it is also true that religious hope and trust in God do not ensure recovery. Belief in a loving God is a source of comfort and strength for millions of people when they are faced with illness. Yet just as the rain falls on the just and the unjust, so, too, illness comes to the believer and the unbeliever alike.

None of the great religions of the world promise protection from the vicissitudes of life. Instead, they teach us to care for one another when trouble strikes. …Pray for strength and healing, yes, but recognize

that not everything that happens is God’s will. To borrow a phrase, linking health to personal faith is not only bad science, it’s also bad religion.

Today I can agree with Spollett that no religion promises protection from life’s sorrows, but it has taken me years to see that. I wanted protection, cure, and safety and expected God to deliver the goods. I desired a miracle and had to come to terms with the fact that God did not respond to my demand. I was caught in the existential realization of the problem of theodicy: why would an all-powerful and all-loving God allow my child to suffer and die? No amount of effort can provide an answer to this question but I spent many years trying.

During the sixteen years of Nathanael’s illness, I searched for spiritual solutions when medicine was not enough. We attended prayer services with evangelical ministers who prayed earnestly for a cure, and met with energy healers whose touch soothed Nathanael and quelled my anxiety. I learned Buddhist meditation, attended silent retreats, and took a course on mindfulness-based stress reduction to help us cope with the day-to-day management of the disease and the disabilities it caused. I read everything I could find on the loss of a child, on grief, on the meaning of suffering. I was able to complete a Master of Sacred Theology Degree at Yale Divinity School during those years and was ordained in the United Church of Christ. This was a long journey through medicine, spirituality, a family’s doggedness, a willingness to explore every possible avenue, and a deepening interpretation of my faith. While it is true that I found my vocation in the midst of this illness, ordination did not quell the search for answers. I questioned God all the way through. And I still do.

~

I have learned over the years to respect serendipitous events and to view them not as just one thing leading to another but to acknowledge them as visitations of grace. Nathanael’s story is filled with such connections. Even in the midst of great difficulties, we were able to find miraculous avenues that led us to the right doctors, schools, and people who helped along the way. These positive outcomes could never be anticipated nor controlled. If we tried to make them happen or read too much into a random event, it never worked out. But when I had given up hope or was just doing the daily things I needed to do so that he could have a decent life, sometimes the answer to a prayer would pop up. And I bowed in thanks and rejoiced.

Receiving that story from Connecticut Magazine was just such a coincidence and this book is the result. It was never clear to me why that church member handed me Lary Bloom’s article. All she said was, I think you might be interested in this. I soon learned that Bloom was an editor and writing teacher who worked with memoirists. I sent him the embryo of this manuscript. Nathanael had died only two years earlier. At that point, I was still engulfed by grief, and my feelings of loss, self-pity, bitterness, and despair dominated my writing. Finding his way through all of that, Bloom saw that there was a story beyond those emotions, and my debt to him is incalculable.

He helped me understand that the story of a mother’s loss was only half the story. Like Rabbi Harold Kushner, whose book When Bad Things Happen to Good People was a significant influence on my thinking, I had a story to tell of how my belief in God had changed and matured after the loss of my son. Like Kushner, I now pastor people who experience suffering and who question God’s part in their difficulties. They need to be reminded that God did not cause their suffering. What do I, their minister, have to say to them, since I, too, have gone through similar trials?

~

Since we live in an increasingly diverse religious landscape, no one language of faith is adequate for those who are searching for a way to understand questions of suffering and loss. So although the language of Christian faith is my mother tongue, I have drawn from two religious traditions other than my own. Both Judaism and Buddhism helped me to cope, understand, and even celebrate life as I learned to live with Nathanael’s illness, disability, and death.

Some of the stories I tell have direct links to Hebrew scripture and Buddhist practice. The story of the Israelites being fed manna in the desert helped me during my despairing days. Wandering in a barren land, hungry, the chosen people received the nourishment they needed, strange but edible. They could not store up the gift for it would go rotten. But it always appeared, day by day.

Buddhist meditation became a bedrock practice for me and gave me tools to accept that the manna could not be hoarded. It had to be accepted moment by moment. Only then did the significance of the Lord’s Prayer become clear to me and I discovered that I could learn to pray as Jesus taught, "Our Father who art in heaven…give us this day our daily bread...."

~

Some readers may face the problem of suffering as a witness to a person who is dealing with tragedy and loss. That is a difficult role to play and it is often unclear how to help and what to say when there are no good answers. It is hard to watch a dear one suffer and to bear with them in their pain without wanting to run away. I commend those who have the fortitude to stay and listen. My words were written to help you see the depth of hurt that someone can feel so that you will be less likely to expect them to move on or find quick comfort for their souls and psyche. They are also a caution not to resort to tired clichés because, truly, it is hard to find the words that convey an understanding of the complexity of healing from a deep loss. No harm is meant but harm can result when we fall back on formulas. Sometimes we haven’t thought through how a simple phrase like God’s plan or everything happens for a reason can feel insensitive when that plan or reason includes the death of a loved one.

~

When I return to the sermon on the healing in Mark’s Gospel, I focus on Peter’s mother-in-law, and how, miraculously restored, she gets up to serve a meal to the disciples. Translated from New Testament Greek, the term raised up is the same word as when Jesus was raised to new life. I know that although my experience was not the same as that woman’s instantaneous cure, I too have been raised up, able now to tell this story.

I can testify that although as we know all too well, nothing can be the same after an illness, an accident, or an act of violence leading to death, there still is hope— hard won as it must be, but nevertheless, hope. And I pray that you will find, as I did, over many years and yes, with much struggle, a new experience—one of acceptance and even on some days, that promised peace which surpasses all understanding.

Chapter One: Invitation (1992)

Nathanael, are you there? Wake up, wake up! The emergency room nurse shook my eight-year-old son’s arm. Wake up, Nathanael!

She turned to me. Did he take any meds? Did he eat any cleaning product, any poison?

No, I said.

She shook him again. When he didn’t respond, she looked at me with accusatory eyes. Had I battered my son into unconsciousness, or otherwise abused him? Perhaps the nurse’s experience at Downtown Hospital’s ER, having witnessed the results of parental horrors, fed her suspicion.

No, I said again, I don’t have any idea. Though feeling guilty, there was no easy explanation. All I could come up with was that in the afternoon Nathanael had bumped his head.

The nurse ran out of the room, almost shouting, I’m getting the on-call neurologist. Left alone with Nathanael, I was slammed between alarm and relief, baffled by the circumstances but certain the doctor would fix whatever was wrong with him. What, I wondered, had happened to catapult us here?

Just the day before we had been skiing at Mount Southington. Nathanael and his Dad had practiced runs on the intermediate slopes, while Marc, his older brother, took the harder trails with ease. Even I had tried the bunny slope. It felt like a perfect day.

And then, after a good night’s sleep, Nathanael put on the schoolboy’s uniform of blue polo shirt and bluejeans, gulped down Cheerios and guzzled orange juice, and laughed at me when I said he should add a sweater. Mom, it’s March. Winter is over. He rushed to brush his teeth and comb the cowlick he could not control. But when he came home from school, what seemed like a small complaint turned serious.

At 2:35, as always, I had met the boys at the front door when they returned from classes. Marc, twelve years old, gave me a quick kiss, pulled on his sneakers, and ran outside to toss a football with a friend while some late spring snowflakes fell.

Nathanael had remained in the entryway, rubbing his head. Mom, Mr. Z. ran the school bus over the curb on Beechwood, and I hit my head on the window. He showed me the spot on the right above the hairline. Only a faint redness was visible.

It looks okay, just a bit bruised, I said, then rubbed it and gave him a hug.

I really hit it hard. Mr. Z. should watch how he drives. It must have hurt, since he rarely complained, but I thought that if he were distracted, it would bother him less.

Why don’t you go outside and play? It’s snowing. Probably the last of the season. You don’t want to miss it.

He hesitated but then went out. Within five minutes he was back.

I have a headache. He scowled. He was usually easy, always smiling. And he never missed an opportunity to play with the kids on the block. But now he insisted on coming indoors. I tucked a blanket around him as he sat on the couch.

I called our pediatrician. She said to watch him and if he should get sleepy or throw up to call back. I called my husband Patrick to tell him what had happened and we agreed that since it didn’t seem like an emergency, he should proceed with his regular Monday night schedule, teaching at a local university after he left his day job, which was conducting marketing research on blood and plasma products for a pharmaceutical firm. I went upstairs to finalize a consulting contract to provide an ethics education curriculum and teacher training for two dozen elementary schools in New York City—a big sale for the educational non-profit that employed me. But the superintendent of schools had left for a meeting; the call would have to wait until the next day.

At 5 p.m., Nathanael, Marc, and I ate some spaghetti, with jarred sauce and store-bought, hard-as-rock meatballs that would have scandalized my Italian mother. But with a job and two kids, who had time to cook a traditional meal with homemade sauce and juicy meatballs?

I was monitoring him minute by minute and was relieved to see him finish his food. I figured that if he could sit at the table and talk about the bus and his homework, he was better. But then he said, It hurts again, and went upstairs to bed. A few minutes later, he threw up the whole meal—tomato sauce forming a vivid stain on the pale covers. I called the doctor who again said to keep an eye on him.

It was just a few minutes later, around 7 p.m., when I found him sitting in the corner of his room, with his head in his hands. I walked him to his bed and sat on the edge. He closed his eyes and seemed sleepy.

Are we in California?

No, Nathanael. We moved five years ago.

Mom, where is Rashmi?

Your old babysitter? I don’t know where she is now. She lived in Irvine.

Do we live in Geneva?

What do you mean? You were born there, but you know we live in Connecticut now.

I called the doctor to detail his gibberish, and she said, Bring him in. I’ll meet you at the hospital.

I picked up sixty-eight pounds of boy and ran down the stairs. Marc held the car door open as I lay Nathanael on the back seat. During the fifteen-minute drive I tried to engage with Nathanael. How are you? I asked, but he only moaned and held his head.

I drove right up to the automatic doors of the emergency room, put the car in park with the ignition still running, and went in shouting, Get a stretcher! My son can’t walk. Two attendants wheeled him into the hospital. Marc sat in the waiting room, while I talked to the nurse.

Now he was in their hands, and they would fix what was wrong. Probably it was a concussion, but they could treat that. Anyway, anything terrible was likely to happen to other