Eternal Families, Children, and The Best Part of Me Was Always You

*Originally written 4/19/2022, edited for posting in 2025.

I was having a discussion with my mom a frew years ago about the trend in China of younger people not wanting to have children. We talked about this trend spreading through society. This trend of young people wanting to enjoy travelling, free time, more financial freedom, and therefore, choosing to not start families or have children.

I watched an episode of a show recently. In the show, there is an extremely wealthy and powerful couple. They put off having children. The wife has gotten older and it may be too later for her to have children, but she’s thinking about children. She has a conversation with her husband. In the conversation she says, “Why have we built all this, what is it for?” And he replies, “It’s for us, we built it for ourselves.” She responds, “But if one of us dies…”

She hit on something there. If you only build in this life for yourself, and if at some point you die, what did you really build it for?

Back to that conversation with my mom years ago, we talked about how this is a sad level of selfishness spreading. How much can I travel, how much freedom can I have, how much money can I have for myself, with children being only a burden that take these things away from us. Now, of course, there are those who can’t have children and don’t have a choice. This doesn’t apply to someone in that situation at all. I’m talking about all the people my age that have decided a child isn’t worth their time, because their life is more important.

Until you give your life for another, you never truly understand your capacity to love. Until you open yourself up to the love and selfless life that is caring for a child, “selfless” is just an adjective.

I was on a long road trip with Beth and Ivy and so I was sitting in the back seat to give Ivy company. This was before Sage and Wren entered our lives. A song started playing. I was leaning over, staring right at Ivy. The lyrics of this song are meant to describe the heartache of a breakup. But as I listened to the words and applied them to the love I felt for my daughter whom I was staring at, the lyrics took on a whole new, eternal, and powerful meaning to me. For those words to take on the meaning they did, I had to apply them in a dark and sad way. I imagined what would happen if I ever lost Ivy (tears come to my eyes as I type those words). Bear with me. The topic will not stay sad and morbid.

The lyrics were from a song called Breakeven by The Script:

I’m still alive but I’m barely breathing
Just prayin’ to a God that I don’t believe in
‘Cause I got time while she got freedom
‘Cause when a heart breaks no it don’t break even

Her best days will be some of my worst

…

While I’m wide awake she’s no trouble sleeping

‘Cause when a heart breaks no it don’t break even, even, no

What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you? And
What am I supposed to say when I’m all choked up and you’re OK?
I’m falling to pieces, yeah
I’m falling to pieces

They say bad things happen for a reason
But no wise words gonna stop the bleeding
‘Cause she’s moved on while I’m still grieving
And when a heart breaks no it don’t break even, even, no

And what am I going to do when the best part of me was always you? And
What am I supposed to say when I’m all choked up and you’re OK?
I’m falling to pieces, yeah
I’m falling to pieces, yeah
I’m falling to pieces
(One still in love while the other one’s leaving)
I’m falling to pieces
(‘Cause when a heart breaks no it don’t break even)

What am I gonna do when the best part of me was always you? And
What am I suppose to say when I’m all choked up and you’re OK?
(Oh glad you’re okay now)
I’m falling to pieces yeah
I’m falling to pieces (oh, I’m falling, falling) yeah
I’m falling to pieces
(One still in love while the other one’s leaving)
I’m falling to pieces
(‘Cause when a heart breaks no it don’t break even)

While preparing to post this, Wren crawled to my chair and pulled herself to stand at my feet. I decided to experiment if this song is still emotional when considered in this twisted context I’ve applied to it. Yup, still tears. I only let myself brush the very edge of the surface of this hypothetical.

I can’t imagine the pain of losing a child. I can not. “What am I going to do when the best part of me was always you?”

I think the most difficult thing that could happen in this life is losing a child and my heart breaks at the mere thought of it. I feel for anyone that has to endure that pain. Just reading those lyrics, considering what I was writing 3.5 years ago, my chest started to ache at the thought. What I wrote here applies more than ever now that I have 3 daughters who I love more than life itself.

“I’m still alive but I’m barely breathing.”

“Just praying to a God that I don’t believe in.” This would ever happen to me. But I can see how it would for so many in this world. Which makes me sad. And is why I’m writing this.

“’Cause I got time while she got freedom” – I’m stuck in time while she would be free.

“Her best days will be some of my worst” – The best days for our loved ones, their return home, to heaven, is often the worst days for those left behind.

“While I’m wide awake she’s no trouble sleeping”

“They say bad things happen for a reason
But no wise words gonna stop the bleeding
‘Cause she’s moved on while I’m still grieving
And when a heart breaks no it don’t break even, even, no

And what am I going to do when the best part of me was always you? And
What am I supposed to say when I’m all choked up and you’re OK?
I’m falling to pieces, yeah.

This discussion with my mom, that moment with Ivy in the car, and these thoughts originally happened over Easter weekend three years ago.

Without the resurection, the lyrics of this song would be perfectly true. It would be impossible to go on from that sort of tragedy. But the resurection is real. Jesus Christ did conquer death. I know that Jesus Christ was resurected and that myself and my family will be resurected.

I can’t believe that I will ever be without Ivy, Sage, Wren, and Beth for too long a period of time. This life is but a blink in eternity. I look at them, and the love I have for each of them, I know the God I love would not allow this level of love in my heart, and then not allow me to be with them forever. It makes me sad that much of Christianity does not have the truth restored through Christ’s true gospel that families can be together forever. I know that Ivy will be mine for eternity. I know that Sage will be mine for eternity. I know that Wren will be mine for eternity. When I’m 100 and Ivy is 70, she will still be my daughter. When I leave this world and she stays, she will still be my daughter. When we both have left this life, she will still be my daughter.

To all those who might be reading this, and I’ve drudged up memories and feelings you have tried to suppress, to all those thinking about the loved one you so desperately miss now, my message to you is of hope. 

I know that Christ suffered all of my sins so that I could be forgiven for them and overcome death through His blood and grace. I know that Christ conquered death and was resurrected, so that my family and I can be resurrected. I know that we will live together again as a family unit, because of what He did for me. This is why (though I always fall short) I’ve tried so hard to give everything to Him – my heart, my time, my love, my devotion, my life – because He already gave me everything that means anything. 

I say with any authority I can muster, with full confidence and faith in the Plan of God: You will see your loved ones again. The ones that make you fall to pieces, the ones that just thinking about choke you up, the ones that make you feel alive but like you’re barely breathing, the ones you don’t know if you can live without because they were the best part of you: You will see them again.

I am thankful for these truths that have been restored. I’m grateful to know that whatever happens in this life or the next, Ivy, Sage, and Wren will be mine, and I will be theirs. Forever. This goes for Beth also. Because of Jesus Christ we will be together forever. And my love for Him is inexpressable when I consider what He’s done for me.