Grieving

My cell phone rang as we drove down the road. Looking back on it now, the familiar ringtone separated three of my daughters' lives into yet another Before and After.

As the details of the phone call ripped through me, I waved at Steve to pull the van over on the side of the highway so I could talk without our children hearing. I wrenched open the door and jumped into the long grass next to us. "I'm so sorry," I repeated over and over again as I cried with the woman who I have come to love like a sister. "I'm so sorry."

The parallel of my life and the life of my girls' birthparents, in that moment, came crashing together.

Because at two or three o'clock in the morning, as we slept soundly in our beds, my daughters' birthfather climbed out of his bed in the camper he was staying in. Unable to sleep, he turned to drugs for comfort.

At around five o'clock in the morning, as the sun peeked over the horizon and I began to stir, my daughters' birthmother woke to the gentle sound of her husband's snoring. Comforted that he was okay, she drifted off again.

At around seven or eight o'clock in the morning, as we began racing around the house to get ready and out the door to church, my daughters' birthfather stopped breathing and left this world.

At eleven o'clock in the morning, as we left church and chatted with friends, my daughters' birthmother went to wake her husband and discovered that though he still lay next to her, he was no longer there.

Husband. Son. Grandson. Friend. Uncle. Cousin. Nephew. Son-in-Law. Brother. Father.

Heart-wrenching grief.

We drove in shock to a friend's house and then home. Wrestling with how and when to tell the girls, wishing beyond anything that we could protect them from the hurt they would feel.

Steve and I went and sat with the girls' birthmother for two hours and helped her cry. It was a rocky relationship they had, but its foundation was a deep love and loyalty for each other.

Hours later as we sat our girls down and cried with our children, I reflected on this verse:

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." (James 4:13-14)

His death left a lot of regrets in a lot of people, including myself. We can't go back and change the past, but we can change the choices we make in the future. That letter I meant to write him five months ago when I thought I had forever to write it? That opportunity is gone. But I can take that hurt and weave it into the peace and resolution that will come from future words that I will make sure get written or said when they need to be.

The pain and regret left in those closest to him will help heal broken relationships. People are coming together that haven't spoken in years. Because Charlie's death has reminded us how fragile life here can be. And no matter how deep the anger, how searing the bitterness, how broken the bridges...nothing is worth living the rest of our lives with the knowledge that we can never go back and make things right.

I pray that as so many of Charlie's family and friends work on just putting one foot in front of the other today, that you may have friendships and relationships that will heal because of our experiences. Ephesians 4:26b says, "Do not let the sun go down on your anger." As we reflect on the good times in his life, as we celebrate who he really was, I pray that you will be reaching out to someone in your life who needs forgiveness, or whom you need to ask forgiveness from. The healing of reconciliation is so much better than the weight of regret.

Thank you for your prayers for my girls and for Charlie's family.

As Dandelions

"Mommy, look what I got you!"

Wide, blue eyes twinkling beneath a tangle of long, blond hair. Dirt caked on fingers wrapped lovingly, carefully, around three beautiful dandelions.

"I picked them just for you! Here, Mommy, take them..."

She's gone in a flash, my sweet, five year old Aimee. Off to the gorgeous green fields where the dandelion harvest seems limitless.

I tuck the gift in my pocket, sparing a second for a mental notation of water and vases and the perfect spot on the counter.

Time passes, as it does. "Don't climb too high; don't run too fast; be careful, your brother is swinging there; say sorry." The moments that seem to last forever until we look back on them and wonder how they passed so quickly.

Hours later, my hand reaches into my pocket. It's a quiet moment, the stillness reminding me of my treasure.

Pulling them out, I feel a tug of disappointment. I waited too long...the vibrant yellows and greens blending and fading; the flowers' faces curled inward. It isn't the first time I hide dandelions in trash bags.

So many lessons that could be twisted and turned and made to seem like a pretty version of what dandelions taught me today. The truth is ugly to me.

I haven't been plugging in like I need to. I haven't been turning to His Word like I know I should. Like crossing the desert and "not having time" to open the canteen; I'm so thirsty I feel like a shadow of myself. The world just has that funny way of making itself too important. Or maybe I have a funny way of making the world too important.

We need to be connected to the vine. "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5)

He is as necessary to us as water and sunlight are to that field of flowers. He doesn't want to be our 911 operator, or the one we turn to when there isn't any one left. He wants to be our First. He wants to be our Father. And that means our relationship has to be more than good intentions.

It's too late for those dandelions... but thank you, God, for your grace that means it's not too late for me.