Favor...

Today I got a phone call from a friend.

"This is an odd request, but remember our friends, we told you about, that had the little girl with a brain tumor? She died this week. Today is the funeral but we need someone to stay at the house in case people come by..."

How could I say no? Why would I?

I did not know this little girl, only four, who lost her life this week. I did not know her parents or her baby sister. I had prayed for her since I knew of her back in October of last year.

Today I sat in her house, her living room, surrounded by her toys and pictures, flowers and cards, playing with her dog, for three hours.

She was a happy child. That was clear. As that her parents loved her very much. A draft of the eulogy the parents wrote was lying on the table and I read it.

When I spoke to my mom on the phone, she was stricken, "What can you say about a four year old in a eulogy? They haven't lived yet..."

So I told her what it said and she cried with me. This child had lived. She had taught, she made a place such that her absence will be felt...

I sat in this house, surrounded by the vestiges of her life and I felt cheated that I had only known of her... not actually known her.

My friends called and thanked me profusely, promising a dinner or favor and gratitude. I said if my presence in the house of strangers could grant them some small comfort or absence of worry as they let their child go back to God I needed nor wanted no "payment."

Just the remnant of spirit that I shared in that house was a gift enough.

Heaven is brighter for our loss, I have no doubt. I can't imagine the pain of the people who had held her in their arms, for all the comfort that knowing that brings.

Tonight my prayers are for them.