Invisible, No More
by Joy Boudreaux
In ANY type of child loss, but most especially when miscarriages or stillbirths or infant losses occur, it seems to me that dads get treated as if they’re invisible. This unfortunate reality, though, puts grieving dads in very good company. St. Joseph seems to have been an ‘invisible dad’ too.
“How’s your wife?” or “How’s your girlfriend?” Pretty harmless questions for most people, but a slap in the face to a man who’s just lost a child. In ANY type of child loss, but most especially when miscarriages or stillbirths or infant losses occur, it seems to me that dads get treated as if they’re invisible. This unfortunate reality, though, puts grieving dads in very good company. St. Joseph seems to have been an ‘invisible dad’ too.
After we lost our twins, Eric & Adam, my husband had to go back to work after just one week. He’s a well known and well liked guy in the IT community at large (yes, I’m bragging), but Ben is especially liked at his company’s Louisiana satellite offices. I mean, he’s ‘the IT guy’! Aside from that, there’s the fact that most people tend to remember you when the size of your family leaves them with their mouths hanging open like a fish that has just been hooked in. That being said, when he went back to work only a week after the twins’ funeral, he was expecting and was met with a lot of questions about what happened. It was difficult for him to have to retell the details of our boys’ deaths over and over, but what upset and hurt him the most was the way they treated HIM - like a third party observer instead of the man who’d just been through and was living every parents worst nightmare. They’d ask how I was doing (how’s moma?) or how the kids were taking it, but never, not once did one of them ask him how HE was doing. When we’d go someplace together, as a couple or as a family, again, they’d ask how I was doing or how the kids were doing, but NEVER, NOT ONCE did they ask Ben how HE was doing even though he was standing right there. They’d just look at him after they talked to me and say, “Be strong, man. Take care of her.” I remember him telling me, frustrated to the point of tears, “Do they NOT see me standing right here next to you?! They’re my kids too! I lost them too! Do I not count? Am I that UNimportant in all this?!”
Even now, today, while I’m writing this, my heart is heavy knowing that no one (including me) was able to help him carry the staggering weight of the loss of our twin sons, or the two babies we lost through miscarriage years before, or losing our 8 month 6 day old daughter years later. More than that, though, the idea that his grief was unrecognized and even unacknowledged by the people around him, that his grief was treated as something ‘less than’ because he’s the dad, or like something to be ashamed of…. that made me angry.
Very little is known of the private and interior lives of the Holy Family. I mean, we do know some of the things Jesus did and said during the 3 years of his ministry because so much of it is recorded in the Gospels. But Jesus lived to be 33 years of age; there’s a lot we just don’t know. (At least I don’t.) We know about the Blessed Mother from the Gospels, even about some things that she felt & thought from Luke and John specifically (“...she kept these things and pondered them in her heart.”), but little more is known about her. Even the small amount that we do know of the lives of Mary and Jesus TOWERS over the few bits of information we have about Joseph.
In the Bible, Mary the mother of Jesus is mentioned by name 25 times (according to BibleGateway.com). Her words are recorded in Scripture on 4 different occasions. 1) to Gabriel at the Annunciation, 2) to Elizabeth at the Visitation (proclaiming her Magnificat), 3) to Jesus when he is found in the Temple after 3 days of being lost, and 4) again to Jesus at the wedding in Cana. St. Joseph, husband of the Blessed Mother and foster father of Jesus is mentioned only 4 times in all of Scripture (according to BibleGateway.com) in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke; no words of his are recorded in Scripture. Talk about the strong, silent type! Again, in the same way people tend to ask about moms of loss but not dads of loss, there seems to be an unbalance in the way St. Joseph is mentioned almost as a mere footnote to the Nativity story and the lives of the Holy Family in general. As though he was a third party observer to the events that would eventually unfold into the climax of Salvation history. THAT, my friends, is where I’ll make my point; just bear with me…. a little longer.
This past year, God has been putting the word ‘duality’ in front of me like breadcrumbs on a trail, leading me towards something. The Holy Spirit revealed a tiny piece of what God was trying to teach me about the dual natures of Jesus - fully divine & fully human - and it involved St. Joseph and Adam (from Genesis, not our ‘littlest’ twin). I tend to be too wordy (‘Really?!’ says everyone who thinks this is already too long), but I’ll break it down in the simplest way I can:
Adam...
was disobedient to God, despite benefit of having direct, face-to-face access to God
blamed Eve for his disobedience - “...the woman....she gave it to me…”
by virtue of his actions & disobedience lost paradise for all of mankind
Joseph…
was obedient to God, despite having only received messages from God in dreams through angels
took responsibility for Mary & her child - “...unwilling to expose her to shame…”
by virtue of his actions & obedience to God, became the first person to behold the face of Jesus, the key to unlocking the gates of paradise to all of mankind.
Adam made a whole lot of stupid choices; I think we can ALL agree to that opinion. I’m pretty sure the people in Nazareth who were ‘in the know’ about Joseph & Mary’s situation probably thought that Joseph was making a stupid choice of his own by going ahead with their betrothal & marriage. But Joseph had taken on not only the legal responsibility of Mary and her child. However unknowingly, he also took on the supernatural responsibility of teaching the Son of the Creator Himself...how...to be… A MAN. [Let that sink in just a bit. Did your brain explode the way mine did at that revelation?!]
Now, I grant you, none of us know what actually happened that night because none of us were actually there, but, imagine if you will, that night in the stable. Because of Joseph’s ‘yes’, it is very likely that his eyes were the first earthly eyes to rest on the Christ Child. Its likely that his rough, calloused carpenter’s hands were the ones that oh-so gently lifted Jesus up and clumsily but lovingly wrapped him in the swaddling cloths before handing him to Moma Mary. Joseph was the first person to cradle the tiny, precious body of Our Savior in his hands. [How’s that for a ‘lightbulb moment’!]
My heart tells me that, in that moment, Joseph understood. He understood that he was to serve God in a new way: by caring for Mary & Jesus. He understood the seriousness and the sacredness of his role in the Holy Family. I don’t think the ‘invisibleness’ of Joseph was due to some unfair, unbalanced recording of events, or the typical bias towards moms in general when it comes to children. I think that from the moment his hands touched the body of the Son of God, the second his eyes witnessed the beauty that was The Word Made Flesh, he became fixed and focused on the task given to him by The Father - to protect and provide for his new family. He felt the gravity of the blessed responsibilities of teaching the Son of Man to BE a man. [Can you imagine?!]
By now, you’re probably thinking, “How exactly does this apply to dads of loss?!”
The load you grieving dads carry must feel like the weight of the world has been thrust onto your shoulders, much like St Joseph must’ve felt. That load is enough to over-burden anyone, but you - you incredibly amazing bereaved dads - you have the additional gut-punch of not being recognized, not nearly enough anyway. Much like St. Joseph in Scriptures.
Right here and right now, I want you to know, dads of loss: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. YOU ARE NOT INVISIBLE. WE SEE YOU. We see you and we want to honor your grief and your fatherhood - however brief it may have been. For all the times you’ve been ignored; been made to feel invisible; been asked about your child’s mother as though she were the only one affected; for all the times that you felt your pain at the loss of your child was something to be hidden or ashamed of, or somehow unimportant - regardless of the circumstances behind your child’s death, their age or stage of development…. For all those affronts and offenses…
I am sorry.
My heart hurts for you and I’m angry FOR you. My prayer for you is that you find peace, comfort, and consolation in the Blessed Mother; that you find forgiveness in your heart for those who’ve dismissed or even denied your loss and, therefore, your right to grieve; that one day, when you leave this earth, you will behold not only the face of your own precious child/children, but,that you would also see the smiling faces of Jesus and Mary themselves... much like St. Joseph, the patron of fathers, at his own death.
