Remarks

Milena’s parents had so much they looked forward to sharing with her, over and above and woven tightly into their provision of food and shelter and love.

Everyone agrees that no one knows what to say. It goes beyond a matter of there being something to say that few, if any, know. The bereaved don’t know what to say, either. Except that somehow anything others say to them, and they to others, if it’s said with attention, feels right to hear no matter how inadequate it sounds to the speaker.

Liz pointed out to Saul early that people keep asking them how they’re doing. How should she say she’s doing, she asked. Saul told her, tell them you’re a wreck. You’re a ship on fire that hasn’t sunk yet. And you’re getting the passengers off just as fast as you can.

They looked forward to sharing with Milena everything the wide world has to offer. They covered the walls of her room with maps and landmarks, stocked it with a zoo of animals, and filled its shelves with what would have been the first of many books. They looked forward to taking her with them to many places as soon she was old enough and as often as could be managed, to visit relatives by the mountains and the sea, and to explore places none of them had ever been. But they also looked forward to sharing with her the richness of her own home town, which has been Saul’s all his life and which Liz has come to love.

They looked forward to showing and telling her who she already was through her many relatives and their stories of her ancestors, showing her the many people she could become, and watching her discover and decide who she actually would be.

As unlikely as it might seem given their backgrounds and points of view, Liz and Saul both love Christmas. They looked forward to sharing with Milena the celebration of light in the midst of darkness, of hope in the face uncertainty. But the story and symbolism of the Nativity have a special place for them. Shorn of the assertions of unique history, it is a fantastic lesson and example to humanity about the blessing and responsibility of children. Because over the course of every pregnancy, there’s never a moment when something can’t go wrong. And that makes every child a miracle. And if a community, or a society, or a whole species is going to survive and thrive by its own actions, it is due to the actions of each member. And that makes every child, in her own way, a savior. Every child should be so wanted, so honored as that one in the manger. Every child should be visited by kings and saluted by angels.

Milena was going to be what her parents were doing for years to come. She either answered or dismissed any questions of what their lives were about or for. Now they face the questions again, some of them with new urgency. Because everything they looked forward to with her is turned aside, and her life that might have been is cut so perfectly short.

But not unmade. Milena has been very busy from the moment she first came to anyone’s attention, and has already accomplished marvels.

Saul and Liz didn’t expect to be parents. They didn’t trust themselves capable of being good parents. They didn’t know that being parents was something of much priority for them. They learned that trust and that priority while Liz was still carrying Milena.

Other things, they knew before, but Milena taught them to understand and to cherish more fully. They know themselves to stand in a dense web of family and friends, from California to Maine, who are as desirous and excited for their happiness and well-being as Liz and Saul themselves are.

They’ve learned more since that terrible morning when these new clarities and securities were bent sideways into loss. They’ve learned depths of their separate strengths and of their love for each other which it had been impossible before even to wonder about. They’ve learned that their anticipation and their grief have touched many who would otherwise have been strangers. Ironically, even health care professionals who have probably seen it all seem to have had a bit of hope in humanity restored to them.

Milena teaches us to trust the people who love us enough to show them our suffering. But moreover, to love everyone: in our suffering, as in our joy, there are no strangers.

And each of you here today, including those here only in spirit, is here having been influenced by Milena. All this from nine brief months, and a few even briefer hours. There is no telling what she could have done with more time.

But there is also no telling now what she may yet do. Every thing and every one she touched is changed in ways great and small. And what are we, in the long term, but the shapes and patterns of the changes we make through our being and doing?

Her parents comfort each other by considering the likelihood that she slipped early from her body having already gained from them what she could gain through it, already formed such force of personality that she is ready for even greater adventures. They do not know what those might entail; they might never know. But they know she has a home with them and a room with everyone who hoped for her, and will visit us often. And they know she will be well looked-after by her great-grandparents, Ren and Georgie, next to whom her body will rest. Saul and Liz also chose the City of Fountains Foundation as preferred recipient of donations in her honor because they knew “Milena’s Fountains” would be among the many daily reminders of her beautiful face and the precious time they spent with her, and look forward to those monuments staying fresh and vibrant forever.

(Composed by Saul; delivered by Kenneth L. McLaughlin)