The Return of the Demon Pirate
And my son, the naval hero
I was literally breastfeeding my baby when I read the post about the woman whose breastfeeding baby was taken away at the border. Empathy and hormones led to a storm of tears. Later, a friend posted about the anniversary of her son’s death in a car accident. Around the same time, I took a walk with my kids and found a statue here in town called “African Pietá" that draws attention to the horrors faced by African mothers and children. A starving Somali woman, like Mary, holds her dead child in her arms.
What’s the deal? I asked God. Why do you keep showing me things about child loss when I just had my baby girl?
Then it happened. Not to me, but to one of my many friends who had a baby around the same time. Her four-month-old daughter fell asleep and didn’t wake up.
That was the post that devastated me. I cried so hard that my poor son thought he had done something wrong and went back to bed. For several days afterwards, I held both my kids closer and had trouble thinking straight. Into the chaos came a voice in my head: “See? If it happened to her, it could happen to you. Be afraid!”
I recognized that voice. It was the demon pirate, back again to try and steal my joy.
This time, I was prepared. I knew better than to listen or to fall for his lies. No, I don’t understand why bad things happen. But God is still good. He will always be good, and I will always trust Him to do what is best. This time, though, there was also a new challenge. Sure, I can handle the bad things happening. But what about my kids? What if they suffer? What if inexplicable tragedy or human cruelty blindsides them, and I can’t keep it away?
Wrestling with the question, I felt prompted toward another vivid pregnancy dream. This one also took place on the ocean, as many of them did. In the dream, my son C was all grown up and serving in the Navy somewhere in the Arctic ocean. His ship had become trapped in a circle of icebergs, with an enemy ship patrolling outside. The crew was rapidly running low on supplies and morale. They couldn’t even communicate with the rest of the fleet. The enemy was not known for taking prisoners. There seemed to be only two choices: starve or be killed.
Like me in the earlier dream, C and a few of his friends were tasked with a secret and daring mission. But the friends were only backup for him. All alone, under cover of darkness, C climbed over the icebergs and swam through the freezing water to the enemy ship. Somehow, he got aboard undetected. He got straight to work, stealing the enemy’s supplies, damaging their ship, and getting an encoded message out to his own fleet before returning just as stealthily to his ship.
Notice who wasn’t there? Me.
Well, I did make sure he had his special blanket with him, which somehow became a telepathic communication device, but my presence was not required.
With the memory of this dream came the reminder of the truth: I can’t protect my children from everything. Suffering is not a “what if”; it’s a certainty. If I don’t lose them, someday they’ll lose me. (Unless we all go at once in some huge disaster, which is hardly desirable.) My responsibility is to prepare them for it. My hope and prayer is that I can help them become the kind of people who would climb icebergs to save their friends.