Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother. Drake Dowsett [Retrieve Lament 2019]
Jesus gave us a litany of last words as a Sufferer; we refer to them as the Seven Last Words of Christ. The deathbed words of the Suffering Servant provide a framework for the stories of lament we share here this Holy Week.
I count it a high privilege to know -- at least in a small part -- the writers of the mourning stories I'll be sharing here during Holy Week. Their lives walk the path of celebration, yes, but also suffering -- illness, relational disillusionment, anxiety, joblessness, the death of loved ones, and the death of dearly-held dreams. Their stories have helped form me in my understanding of suffering and I believe they could also encourage you too.
Our friendship with today’s guest took a serendipitous turn when Drake’s move from Austin to Portland to Manhattan coincided roughly with our move from Austin to Connecticut. We live a short train ride away from each other and take advantage of that every chance we get. For almost eight years we’ve walked together on a healing journey, first in Austin and now, along with his wife Kirstin, here in the Northeast. As long as we’ve known him, we’ve witnessed Drake’s desire to know God’s heart more deeply and to reflect it to the world more wholly. It’s been a beautiful journey to watch, and I’m grateful to introduce a small part of his story here on the blog this Holy Week.
Would you read Drake's story with me, and listen with an open heart for any words Christ might be speaking to you?
Christ on the Cross with Mary and St. John (diptych), Rogier van der Weyden
“So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.”
Behold your mother; behold your son
by Drake Dowsett
One evening, about four months into our marriage, Kirstin turned to me and said something completely unexpected and tragically astute. We had finished a call with my parents and were “debriefing” as per usual: sharing, reflecting, analyzing, and praying after any noteworthy interaction (and being newlyweds, every interaction with either in-law has been some kind of noteworthy to us). Over the years of our relationship, Kirstin and I had already debriefed a lot after each interaction with my family.
To me, it had always seemed that there was some great cultural divide between her family of origin and mine, that we were just reconciling our worlds, that we were working toward a place where it would eventually all just click. But this evening, reflecting on my mother’s behavior on the call, Kirstin quietly summed up the hidden reality of my childhood, my narrative, my life: “I wonder if she has borderline personality disorder.”
In the hours that followed, we had exhausted the content we could find online. Within a few days, I had several library books on the subject either in hand or on hold. (The most impactful one was Understanding the Borderline Mother by Dr. Christine Ann Lawson, which I could not put down.) I learned how Borderline Personality Disorder (or BPD) is a mental illness that results in emotionally treacherous relationships and how growing up in such an environment forcefully molds the defenseless child into the form of the ill parent’s caretaker. I read example after example that reflected the very dynamics of my family of origin.
It all made a new horrible kind of sense out of the things that had seemed difficult or impossible in my mother-son relationship as an adult. It helped explain the strain that Kirstin and I had felt as a new couple. It bolstered my confidence in the boundaries I had established as “family of one” in my late 20s. It illuminated so many odd memories growing up. But it also exposed a gaping ragged hole where I thought things had just been a little off: it exposed me as the emotional orphan I have been for decades.
I have so many questions. How is that I in my 30s have had my entire sense of normal shaped by such devastating mental illness and not known until now? This is a woman who deeply loves the Lord and seeks him with faithful discipline, going back years before I was born. How could the Lord not draw this out in community and bring health to her in time to spare her family the consequences? How could the church have been so ill-equipped that, through decades of her participating in Bible studies, mentorship, and prayer groups, this was neglected?
“When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” (John 19:26-27, ESV) In the past, this passage has always had a charming quality to me. Look at the good man caring for the mother who’s lost her son! Look at how her needs are being met! This year, it troubles me. As a child of BPD, I have been wrongly conditioned to meet the emotional needs of the one who should have been meeting mine. This year, I worry for the disciple.
In the shalom that God designed for his creation, my mother was to be more like Mary, my father was to be more like Joseph, my life was to be more like Jesus’. I look at this passage and this time see how dimly our dingy triptych stands in comparison to the ideal. I can taste the absence of his kingdom and I am hungry for it with a deep ache that cuts back through the years to my earliest memories.
But we speak of the already-but-not-yet. In his kingdom that is already, the Lord has given me a future and a hope. He has captured my heart for himself. He has restored me far beyond what my childhood should have allowed. And it sure seems he is forming Kirstin and me into a healthier family unit than is our natural inheritance.
In his kingdom that is not-yet, when it has finally come, I have a quiet hopeful anticipation that Jesus will rush to greet me. And by his side, there will be a woman who I won’t quite recognize. And he will eagerly introduce us. And the beginning of our true friendship will be marked by his words: “Behold, your mother; behold, your son.”
Pray:
“O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Drake Dowsett lives in the East Village with his wife Kirstin and [any day now] their cat. When he’s not writing blog content for a friend, he’s writing software for a tech startup, or composing music at home, or off drinking an oat milk cortado. He’s technically a millennial but does not really “get” twitter. Time to time he posts an amateur work of art on instagram: @dragoist.
“Once, ritual lament would have been chanted; women would have been paid to beat their breasts and howl for you all night, when all is silent. / Where can we find such customs now? So many have long since disappeared or been disowned./
That’s what you had to come for: to retrieve the lament that we omitted.”
(See all of the Retrieve Lament stories from this year here.)