Love That Never Fails

Thank you, Lord, for the blessing of this year which  is now drawing to an end.  Thank you for every dark road I've travelled, for every bump in the road,  for every tear I've shed and every sorrow I've faced.  Thank you for each struggle, each disappointment and each trial along the way.  Thank you for the betrayal I endured, the friendship that was tainted and the courage to forgive.  Thank you for every opportunity to reach out, to press in and to connect with someone who needed a connection.  Thank you for giving me a heart for those on the fringes and for letting me experience what it is to be an outcast myself.  Thank you for letting me be unjustly accused and for allowing me to endure and forgive.    Thank you that you never give up on me and that you are teaching me to never give up on others, because-you love them as you love me. Thank you for the strength to reach out despite being shut out and to trust you for every outcome.   Every heartbreak has been an opportunity and I am thankful for each one, though I would not have chosen any of them. I may fall and I may fail, but your love never will. I am grateful.

RipTide

The writer has been largely silent. Paralyzed, and unseen. Uncharacteristically in the shadows. 


From the outside in, all seems "normal.' I get up, drink coffee and make smoothies most mornings.  I go to work and I come home. I open mail and I make dinner.  The husband and I eat together and talk about the day. I water my garden and I do my shopping.  I've mostly returned to my routines, such as they were before.  Life appears largely uninterrupted.


But, as we know, appearances can be deceiving.  Yes, despite the smooth, glassy surface, there is a persistent current, deep, alarming and invisible,  kind of tugging at my feet.  Throughout  my day, it tries to pulls me down and I fight to stay afloat. Silently, surreptitiously it grabs at me,  threatening to suck me under. When I least expect it, the dreaded sense of  danger and momentary  panic surfaces. I quickly push it under, but it lurks nearby, never far from my mind. 


I drive home from work and as I transition from one freeway to another, I am  reminded, this is where I would command my phone to "call Mom".  It was this stretch of my trip home after a day's work,  where I would call her to check in and see what her day had held.  The calls are over. 


In the formerly simple act  of opening of mail lurks the threat of the unknown.  This, too, can pull me under, as much of it is hers.  "A third party" (who? how?) has advised us of the death of...". Six weeks later, the occasional card from a loving friend arrives, sending condolences and some with sweet remembrances.  A call from my Aunt Marguerite, marking the four year anniversary of my Dad's death. A  handwritten note from my Aunt Wilma, reminiscing about days gone by and her love and appreciation of my parents and now me. Sweet, precious expressions of love. But the piles of paperwork, legal issues to be attended to, decisions to be made and an estate to be distributed all weigh me down like a smothering blanket in the desert. Moments of sheer panic well up in my chest. 


As I write, tears roll down my face.  Daily they hover in my eyes, ready to roll, but mostly contained. 


There is sorrow and there is also joy.  The kindness of friends and loved ones have been an enormous comfort and encouragement. A church who has prayed for and with us...the generosity and the remembrances and the memories, they are all priceless jewels in my heart. Simple kindnesses are now the fuel that remind me that there is hope and there is good and there is still much life to be lived. Grief is a road that allows no shortcuts.  I have no doubt that I will travel it for awhile and that the traveling of it will make the roads beyond that much sweeter.  

Loss is a precious reminder to treasure what remains. And, there is much that remains. I am grateful. 

Grief Exposed

"What is central to your life is peripheral to others." Author and radio personality Dennis Prager said it at a lecture the husband and I attended earlier this year. I jotted it down in a little journal I carry in my purse, thinking it was true and that I would want to remember it down the road.

Down the road I am. Pacific Coast Highway, Hermosa Beach, just South of Pier Avenue to be specific, and it hits me like a ton of steel: the world is carrying on, completely unaware that a huge part of me has disintegrated into thin air. There is a hole in me you could drive a hummer through, yet no one around me notices. The oxymoronic invisible hole that is me, or more accurately, what used to be me. This event, through which everything else is now filtered, is unknown to the masses I rub elbows with as I move through the days and nights since that day.

Mother's Day. Ironic, yes? Just hours after her four children gathered around her hospital bed, the one who carried me in her body, gave me life, pushed me into the world and gave me my beginnings, left this world. She, who had been with me from the very beginning, an anchor of sorts, gracefully slipped from this life to the next.

We met with a kind doctor. A man with warm eyes and a caring heart. He told us what we long suspected but hadn't spoken; that her body was telling us what she wanted and that it was time to think about what her wishes were. We decided it was time, to let go. After more than two weeks of ventilators, dialysis machines and round the clock 24 hour one on one nursing care, it was time. She was tired. The evidence was clear. There was no going back to the life she had once had.

We returned to her room. Tubes were disconnected. Machines shut down. Medications stopped. The room that had relentlessly hummed with beeps and gurgles and flashing numbers grew mournfully silent. A curtain was drawn. We removed our gowns and masks. We touched her skin to skin...massaged her feet and arms and hands with warm lotion. We played her favorite songs and we prayed. We bid her farewell and urged her to her to look for Poppa. We knew he'd be waiting for her. For Jesus, who saved her. For her own dear Mother and sisters and brothers and friends who had gone ahead of her.

She slipped away quickly, painlessly and gently. We said our good byes. And there was peace, trusting that the satisfaction she always yearned for and never quite found on this planet was finally hers. That was over a month ago. And, I am still paralyzed.

I did not expect this depth of sorrow. I really thought there would be a greater sense of serenity, more relief that her battle was over. I did not expect to feel so adrift-the proverbial ship without an anchor. Whatever her issues, she grounded me in a way no one else ever could. She was ever present in my life. My only remaining parent, and now she is gone. There is an enormous void I was not prepared for.

This is going to be a long journey and I've only just begun.

Walking through the valley of the shadow of death...

Loss. Sorrow. Grief. In the last week or so, there have been numerous implosions of sadness around me. A high school friend sat at the bedside of her dying daughter who was buried today. A long time friend said goodbye to her father for the last time. Another friend, in Oregon, received a call this week notifying him that his mother had suddenly passed following a hip fracture. At this moment, my oldest and dearest friend's father lies in a hospital in Ohio, demanding to go home. When he does, hospice workers will accompany him in order to provide comfort measures for however much time he has left. I have two dear friends awaiting test results, knowing well the results could bring their worst fears or their greatest hopes. Another friend suffers a different kind of loss. The failure of hope, because someone she loves has disappointed her, again. Sadness comes in all shapes and sizes. One size does not fit all.

We cling so tightly to this life. Most likely when mine comes to an end, I too, will struggle to hold on in order to stay just a little bit longer. We have lives we love, people we don't want to leave behind. I am no exception, but, I do believe, in my heart of hearts, that when I have crossed over to my heavenly home, all the concerns that made me want to stay--the unfinished business, the hopes not yet realized, the goals not achieved, they will all pale in comparison to what I will know there as I sit at the feet of Jesus. We who walk this earth hold so tightly to dreams we want to see fulfilled. A child grown into a man. An education completed. A baby born. A wedding ceremony performed. A family at peace. These are the dreams we live for. They are worthy pursuits and when realized may bring unspeakable happiness. But they are imperfect dreams, and we who travel this planet, cannot conceive of dreams more precious, dreams more exquisite; dreams of heaven, perfect dreams realized.

When my own father was dying in a hospital, I, long before my siblings and my mother were able to acknowledge it, knew that the end was most assuredly near. I knew too much. It's not that sorrow didn't apply to me. It surely rocked my heart to the core. But, I didn't ask why. I know that the same God who gives, takes away. I know that there's never a good or right time. I acknowledge that it's easier to let go when a life has been long and well lived and more difficult when it's early- in what we see as an unfinished life. Still. I cling to the belief that life here is not life in it's entirety. There is more. I believe that as surely as I believe the sun will rise and fall everyday. I honestly don't believe anyone who has prepared for eternity by accepting Jesus' gift of salvation, has ever arrived in heaven and wanted to come back to this life. Heaven is richer, more beautiful and more joyous than our finite minds can grasp. One does not move from the ghetto to the palace and then ask to return the utter poverty they were rescued from.

The greatest sadness for me is not the loss of one's presence here on earth. That, because, I believe there is a life beyond. The greater sorrow is if that one has not prepared for the life beyond earth's borders. One's eternal destiny is the most important goal of all and one that requires our attention now, while we still have time to determine where we will spend it. A life lived only for pleasure and temporal things is a life ignorant of true meaning, a life cut short too soon, whether 16 or 96 years long. To share that truth with those who don't know, is a sacred and critical responsibility. The gift of God is eternal life, available to all who will believe. As one who has gratefully received that gift, I am responsible to share it with others as the Lord provides opportunity.

If you, dear reader, long to know what it is that gives me this hope--the hope that takes away death's sting, I long to share it with you. I cannot tell you you will not face sorrow. I cannot promise that. I still cry bitter tears. I still have a dread of life without those I love most. I still pray for healing and reconciliation and the end of pain. But, in the end, I know. I know that one day, on the other side, the pain will end, the tears will be wiped away and death will be no more. Because Jesus said so. And I believe it.

I do love this life I've been given. I truly do. I am blessed beyond anything I ever imagined. But, when my time comes, don't grieve for me. Don't call me back. I'll wait for you. Be there.

Moments forever lost...

In everything, give thanks. Not for everything, but, in everything. I am challenged by that scripture today. It's hard to give thanks when you don't understand, and, frankly, I don't. I struggle with the knowledge that someone you love so much can create so much heartache by their willful absence, shutting out those who love them. I struggle with the knowledge that outsiders unknowingly add to the sorrow by buying into one side of it without assuming the best intentions from the other. I refuse to speak poorly of one who speaks poorly of me. I will not. Instead, I choose to entrust myself to the One who judges all things rightly, knowing that He will work it all for my good, in His time. I still believe that. But, today there were tears for moments forever lost. Tomorrow I will stand in hope again. But today, for a few minutes, a wave of sorrow engulfed me.

His mercies are new every morning. I am grateful.