The Painting That Held a Short Life

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”Jeremiah 1:5

Jenny and James brought a seaside painting that had belonged to James’s grandparents. Their son Elijah had been born at twenty-five weeks and lived only thirty-seven days. The painting had become a place where they could still meet him.

When the mould was removed and the colours returned, Jenny said they would hang it where they would see it every time they entered or left the house. “He’s there,” she said. “Part of who we are.”

Some lives are measured in days, not years. Love still finds a way to keep them present. A repaired painting cannot make a short life longer. It can refuse to let that life disappear from the house.

God knew Elijah before anyone else did. A life of thirty-seven days is not small to him. The Church prays for children who have died, and for the parents who had so little time. We trust them to God’s mercy. We believe that death is not the end of the child. In the resurrection, God will raise the dead. The parents will not only have a picture. They will see their son.

At Mass we remember those whose lives were brief. We do not measure a person’s worth by the number of their years. We place them with Christ, who blessed children and who himself knew a human life from the womb.

The painting now hangs in the place of coming and going. It says that Elijah belongs to this family. That is true. He also belongs to God, who knew him first, and who has not let him go.

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