Dear Grief
Dear Grief,
We've been keeping company for the last several months, but we haven't spoken directly. We have simply coexisted. Although you have been relentless in your pursuit of me, I've been tentative in embracing you as more than an unwanted intruder. Friendship was an offer you put on the table, and frankly, I found it pointless. That is until the One who sent you was kind enough to let me see glimpses of who you really are. You are the remnants of losing both my parents just three months apart during the early summer, but I know now that you are more than that. You are a beautiful ugly presence. When I think of the most beautiful ugly thing that ever was, I think of Jesus on the cross. Could anything have been more ugly, more cruel, more barbaric, more seemingly pointless on the surface? Yet could anything more beautiful ever exist? Could anything more amazing result from such violent conditions?
In the spring and early summer, the gardening begins. We cherish the beauty and wait with anticipation for the harvest that will come, bounty for the table. But this year, you injected yourself into our lives, and the garden had to take a back seat. We harvested tomatoes, and okra and the like, but the time and energy for tending was sorely missing. The longer you decided to stay, the taller the weeds grew. The vegetables, and the flowers we planted amongst them to fend off pests, grew side by side, and the weeds joined them.
At first I saw it as an eyesore, but the taller the grass grew, the more whimsical the site became to me. I would lie on my bed next to the open window and look upon the sight, breeze blowing through, birds chirping as they sat perched on tomato cages, and butterflies flitted to and fro in the sun. The neighborhood cat had even found a jungle playground to romp around in as he caught bugs, and I laid in the bed on a tear stained pillow watching.
I began to see the beauty in this odd peaceful picture, and it became a symbol for my pain and my growth. Before I knew it, fall arrived, and I begged my husband not to mow down the garden because to mow it down was to mow down this beautiful thing that was happening inside of me. The work wasn't complete, and I wasn't ready to see you go or to distance myself too far from those final painful moments of losing my parents. To distance myself was to forget, and I feared forgetting. You were drawing me closer to my God. As painful as it was to lose my parents I realized that you didn't cause the pain, loss did, the loss that has come to all of us since we were separated from God in His garden. You weren't the pain, you were the force pushing me to my knees in prayer. You were the voice echoing in my ear that said, "Go to Him, and find rest." And so, I embraced you. We have journeyed together into the presence of God, and we sit side by side as you help me more deeply feel the love my parents had for me, that God has for me now and always, and that I need to have for others. You are a healer, not a hurter, and I have grown to realize that you are God's gift.
Like the struggle of fall taking over summer, the drop and rise again in temperatures, your presence has come and gone and come again. Just when I think you have left, there you are again. You are so dominant, so hard to ignore, but I know God has sent you because there is work to be done. Like a mother, my mother, trying to keep me on the right path, you always usher me to the foot of the cross where each visit makes me more like the person He intends for me to be. Anything that draws my closer to the Heavenly Father is good.
"Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation became his prized possession."
James 1:17-18
So we understand each other these days. I've embraced you as a welcome guest. You stay more often than you leave, and I work on not needing you, and I know that's what you want too. I call on God, and you move to a corner in the room, but you know I'll take on the pain again so you don't leave the house altogether. Your job is to push me to God. And like all good friends should do, you remind me of Who holds me.
Because of you, I'll never see the seasons the same again. A wilting flower won't signal the end of something good, but the beginning of something new.
It's winter now, and the garden has been mowed down. It was sad for me, but I'm sure the neighbors were relieved. The garden spot is barren, just dry frozen ground, no visible life. And it is still a symbol of this healing process. The space that Mom and Dad vacated, feels barren. I understand barren. But I also understand that barren can be beautiful. There is a beauty in a garden spot that waits for spring planting. The soil lives and breaths and waits to enrich the seeds that are planted there. God too remains in the barren, and he plants seeds in our soul soil that has become rich and fertile through the trials in our lives. I can't keep you at arms length, Grief, for He's commanded me to consider you an opportunity for great joy. And you've proven Him right.
"When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing."
James 1:2-4
So I thank God for how He's using you in my life. I can almost see you smile when I say those words. I know He's smiling. It brings Him great joy when the lessons of his Word take root.
Sincerely,
Stephani
Thank you to Kate Motaung for giving me this opportunity to write a letter to grief. This is the third letter in a row that I've written in this space. These letters are valuable tools in the healing process after great loss. I am hoping this will be a re-entry into blogging for me. The care of my parents over the last few years has left me with little energy or time to blog much. I've missed it.
The Roughest Road, In the Deepest Valley, On the Darkest Night
Dear Mom,
I've been wanting to come to this space and write about your journey home, but it's almost impossible to come up with words to describe what life is like now without you. I can feel, and I often become overwrought with emotion, but words escape me. Words have never escaped me when I sit down at a keyboard or with pen and paper.
You're gone. It's not plain, and it's not simple. It's the roughest road, in the deepest valley, on the darkest night, that I have ever walked. I thought I knew what grief was, but now I know I had no idea. I have no doubt that losing you and Dad just three months apart makes my grief significantly more difficult, but it's my reality. You've been gone for 61 days, and Dad has been gone for 159. It's been a long night, and daylight isn't in the foreseeable future, but the beautiful thing is that God is lighting this path just like He has lit all the other dark paths I've traveled in my life. He promised He would, and He has. If it weren't for Him, I'd be wandering around in the bramble bushes.
I don't want to take away from the beautiful joy of your new life in the presence of God. I can't grasp it. I can't pretend to. I read about it every day in His Word, but I can't really fathom it, not until I'm there. To be well without worry, and to never have death hanging on your horizon again must be perfection for you. I haven't made it one day since your death without crying. I have at least one meltdown a day, but often the tears come when I think of the overwhelming peace that must have washed over you the moment you left your broken body. Your joy is my joy, and my joy often sheds tears.
Grief really is a selfish thing, but it's a necessary thing. I celebrate your joy, but I mourn my loss. The space you occupied in this world became sharply empty when you vacated it. I knew in an instant that the world had changed, and life would never be the same again. Well meaning people say time heals, or it will get better. I used to say that to people too before I lost both of my parents, but now I've joined the ranks of those who understand the spiritual reshaping that takes place when relationships like this are severed. To be torn from the voices I heard even while living in the womb, and yet continue to be eternally intertwined with them is not an easy thing to experience or explain.
I'm shuffling through the days trying to figure out how to grab a hold of the moments and make something useful of my life. Caregiving was my life for 8 years. During those years I didn't care much for myself or my home, and now I look around and wonder what in the world happened while I was away. I've got work to do, and it's hard to get back to it. I miss everything about caring for you from feeding you to kissing your cheek. I miss those evenings when you would lay in bed, and I would read from Streams in the Desert. But I also know that all of that caring meant you were suffering and needed comfort. I'm so glad you don't need my comfort anymore. You've found your resting place, and I will find a new place to serve when the time is right.
You and Dad have been my beloved parents, my spiritual rock, and my best friends all of my life. I was at home wherever you were. Dad gently slipped away day by day, and you just plain snuck out when I wasn't looking. I've seen myself in a vision running down a dirt road behind the dust of an old Model A pickup truck screaming, "Wait, wait for me!!" Dad is driving, and you can't hear me above the whir of the engine, or the rickety rackety of the old metal frame, or the whisper of the still small voice that called you away. I wouldn't have wanted you to ignore that voice for anything, but as I stand in the middle of the road in a cotton print dress watching you disappear, the little girl in me longs to go home too.
I'll be there. I'll be there soon enough. What a day of rejoicing that will be when we, through Christ, are together once again. It's the beautiful part of the story, the part of the story that waits for all of us who dare to trust Christ. Thank you for giving me this Good News. Thank you for telling me His story. It's because of His story that I can know how ours ends. How can I keep it to myself? Let it not be so.
I love you sweet Mom, and I miss you so so much!
Steph
A Final Letter
Dear Dad,
The tears have already begun to flow. My scrunched up face and saltwater filled eyes gaze at this screen as I type. I miss you so much. It's been 46 days since you died. It's been harder than I anticipated, but just as you always said, "God is not in the forsaking business." He has been faithful in big and small ways since your death. There was that time just a few days after your funeral when I just "happened" to come across your entire lesson on suffering, based on the book of Job. What a God thing to be able to learn from my Dad, in his own hand writing, how to deal with his death. And then there was the day recently when I opened the hymnal to sing, and your note fell out - the one you wrote to me while in Memory Care - the one where you spelled my name wrong. : )
It seems fitting to write you a letter because I've written so many before. That's how I've shared my deepest thoughts and feelings with you. And perhaps this won't be the last letter I write to you. I may over the weeks, months, even years to come, feel the need to talk to you, and you know how much easier the words come to me when I write. It seems appropriate to share my letter here in this space where over the last 8 years I have shared much about our journey together. Even in my absence from this place with no walls, I know friends who are sitting behind bright screens in dimly lit rooms talking to our God about my suffering. They have loved me from a far and walked this journey with us.
I spoke at your funeral, Dad! Did Jesus tell you about it? There were over 350 people there and my nerves didn't take over. God's Holy Spirit did. We had a worship service to honor you but more importantly to honor your God. Our God. I shared parts of some of the letters I had written you over the years, and I testified to God's faithfulness to us as we walked a dark road called Alzheimer's. Here are just a few of the words I shared.
"Just 10 short months after Mom and Dad moved into Independent Living at the senior living center, Dad moved to the Memory Care wing. It was there that God faithfully showed me that just because a road is not well lit, does not mean it is unsafe or unsavory. It was on the dark road called Alzheimer's that I more deeply grasped the matchless grace of Jesus, and the deep love God has for me. In the darkness, God's light shines the brightest. In the darkness, we seek Him out. Because with God, there is no such thing as pitch black. John 1:5 says, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it." And so, if we are on a path which God has placed us, we can know by default that he will light it. God's word is true. It can be trusted. So we must not fear the dark road, we must trust the one who lights it. God's fingerprints were all over this journey with Dad, and He was not only faithful to him, but faithful to continue His good work in me by using my Dad's life to mold and shape me further, even in the midst of Alzheimer's."
So you see Dad, not a moment of your life was wasted. Even in those moments where you didn't have a clue who I was, God was using you to teach me and others! Our God is an amazing God! You know that even more than I do now. I'm so glad you are in His presence. Yes, I do miss you, but I'm glad you are whole again. I'm glad you've received your reward. It's hard for me to imagine that if God allows me to live as long as you did, I will walk the roads of this life for 40 more years - without you. You have been my rock, but that is one thing that God has taught me, and that is, He must be my rock. You were and are a perfect Dad. Even after your death your words and all that you instilled in me are with me. Because you poured into my life all that you could while you were here, you will continue to be with me every day until I join you. And Dad, I will join you as only those of us who are in Christ can.
Of course, my privilege now is to continue overseeing Mom's care. Here, we are celebrating at the family gathering after the funeral. Mom's getting used to selfies! Your beautiful bride is suffering Dad, but she is tough, and she loves Jesus. I will be faithful to her Dad, and she too will be with you soon, probably sooner than I would like to see her go.
I love you Dad. I miss you. And I am so very proud of you.
Your youngest,
Stephani
This is the final photo that was taken of Dad. He was leaning in to listen to hymns being played on my phone as I held it near his ear. This photo was taken on a Sunday, he died one week later.
Thank you to my internet friends who have walked this journey with me, who have prayed and shared words of encouragement. I continue to need your prayers as I care for Mom and the handling of Dad's estate. I still love this blog space, and do hope to return. Until then, know you are loved and thought about often!
Fit Because of the Cross
Beauty might not be in the slim lines of a fashion model.
And it might not be in the defined curves of a body builder either.
We aren't one dimensional. God created a whole person that is mind, body, and spirit.
But beauty might just be found in fully realizing the gifts that God has given us, in digging deep within our souls and far into the wonders of God's Word to be all that he intends physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Inner strength that comes from tapping into the resources God has given us, by saying yes to the completeness of who He is and the gifts he has placed at our fingertips, is truly beautiful.
This video may inspire you to put on your running shoes, but I hope it inspires you to dig deep and ask yourself if you are developing your inner person with the discipline of an athlete, fit because of the Cross.
I've been away from social media for a month and away from blogging even longer. I have been digging deep, and listening to the Lord. I come back almost with fear and trepidation as I have so enjoyed my time alone with God in the quiet, so I return slowly and possibly in fits and starts. I'm glad to be back among friends though, and look forward to hearing from you.
