Hello and Goodbye

One year ago Kit came home from the hospital, after he had flown from our car, skidding along a cold dark road, tearing open his flesh, breaking his back, bruising his beautiful brain.  The night he left the hospital was a monumental night.  It is the night that a battle ground was set in my heart; the night that fear and anxiety and awakening pain began a battle for my heart and mind. 

The IV narcotics had been gone from my system, and oral medications only slightly quieted the pain in my body.  The pain had awoken like a roaring giant.  Since that night that giant has gone back to sleep, quiet now; but the roar still haunts me.  Just like the terror filled screams of my babies in our shattered car still haunt me; they have been replaced with laughter and usual fussings of 2 and 5 year old girls.  But if I close my eyes, and spend one moment not focused on my Rescuer, the roars of both are quickly loud again in my mind. 

One year ago the battleground for my peace began.  Anxiety and deep raging fear entered my life; but so did the most beautiful refrains I’ve ever heard.  That night God opened my heart to the scriptures- His love letter to us- in a new way.  He sang over me that night; songs of His love and faithfulness.  “I will come to you.  I will not forsake you.  I have rescued you, you are mine.  My angels encamp around you…”  Since that day I have had to make a recurring choice:  Will I listen to the screams of fear and anxiety, or choose to listen to the beauty of love gifts given from my Father?

This last week was a moment by moment choice as my grandfather passed and his funeral was over Easter weekend, the anniversary of the night we were rescued.  I could not imagine being away from my family over that weekend and so we were all going to travel to New Mexico, some by car and some flying.  However, life got in the way.  Stomach bugs and sick babies necessitated a change of plans, and only I and the older boys flew down for a whirlwind 48 hour trip.  Everything in me screamed that I should stay home with my family…safe and together.  But that was not the road that God had for us this weekend.  And so we traveled to southeastern New Mexico and God had beauty waiting for us there.

My sweet cousin, Aaron, and I were asked to sing for Papa’s funeral.  We sang together when we were children, and I miss that part of my life so much.  We haven’t sung together for over 20 years, but when we started to sing in my uncle’s kitchen, I closed my eyes, and I felt like I was 18 again…our voices make beautiful music together.  When I opened my eyes I was looking at my uncle, but it wasn’t really him, it was Aaron.  I looked down at my mom’s hands, but they were actually mine.   We are now our parents ages when we last sang together.  Our children were running around in the background.  The circles of life continue on.  Later that night my mom and grandma sat together holding hands, eyes closed, tears streaming down their faces as they listened to the recording of us singing together over and over.  I can’t help but hope that they were also closing their eyes and remembering how life felt over 20 years ago, when we were all together.

We managed to make it through his service without too many mistakes, and I think Papa would have been so happy and proud.  Damon, my other cousin, had lovingly dug the grave for Papa...I am sure each pass had been filled with pain and love and sacrifice.  My Papa would have loved that too.  At the burial I again witnessed the beauty of life lived well, love in family and generations of love.  I sat and held my grandma’s hand, as she held my mom’s hand and my mom held Aaron’s daughter’s hands.  Aaron stood and sang for our grandpa one last time.  Then the pastor said that this was the end of our road with Papa for now.  We were saying good-bye but he was being greeted in Heaven with a welcoming group of those who have gone before with hello’s.  The next time we see him, we will be passing over, and he will be greeting us with “hello” and there will never be anymore good-byes.  

And there at that grave I began to hear the refrains of pain and fear and anxiety rising up, what if last year had been good-byes and caskets for all 5 of us.  Would songs have been sung that were rejoicing, or would there have only been tears?   None of these questions provide any peace in my heart, because they are not the story of rescue that we have lived, and in them is only lies and temptation to give into fear.  I cried out in my heart, “Please God, take these thoughts away from me.  Remind me that you have saved me, you rescued us.  You will never leave me.”  And while I do not believe God was directly speaking through the next few moments events, I certainly didn’t spend any more time with questions that don’t need answered.  I stood and looked over across the cemetery just as my oldest son threw up all over some poor soul’s grave.  Absurdity!  I actually laughed out loud.  Jonathan responded by telling me that Jacob could have a shirt made with the insult, "I'll throw up on your grave."  Which only added to my laughter; queue the old Western film music, stand-off with two cowboys, including a tumble weed rolling by in the wind.  That laughter was exactly what I needed in that intense moment.

But then it struck me, my body is not in the ground.  I am here, living life in the reality of mess and busyness that comes with 6 children.  I just said good-bye for a moment to my grandfather who lived 89 long blessed years, and will say hello to him again in eternity.  We didn’t have to say good-bye last year to lives cut short.  We continue to say hello to each other every day, even on the bad days we are still together living out the purpose that God still has for our lives. 

We arrived home safely on Easter Sunday, some of us sick, and yet home together.  And it is Spring, however I am not sure that the weather in Montana is so sure.  Just hours after we drove in, the clouds rolled in, and the snow began, and the beauty of spring went into hiding.  And I could focus on the storm, the fog, the hiding of the mountains and feel sad, but this morning the sun broke through, and with it, breathtaking beauty.  Storms and beauty.   Screams of fear and pain and songs of my Creator.  Death and goodbyes, and life eternal with hellos every day.  Life is messy on this side of eternity.  The battle for my peace is far from over, and may continue until I say my final goodbyes here, and begin the eternal hello’s there.  But today, I am choosing to see the beauty.  I am going to continue to look for moments that take my breath away when life is hardest…like seeing generations holding hands, supporting each other in love at a grave site.  Like voices joining together, singing beautiful songs of hope filling up rooms of sadness with joy.  Like the mountains breaking through after days of storms. 

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."

Isaiah 43:18-19