I don't know it yet but I just kissed you goodbye for the last time. The path of our life together ended in a heartbeat. Tomorrow's memories, snuggled in the comfort of my mind, will never come to fruition. I can't see them but they are dissolving like sand in the waves of destiny.
Watching you walk away, I think about the million things I have to do before you return. I will look back on this moment and wonder which one of them seemed so important, that I didn't stand outside and wave goodbye as you drove away, into a future neither of us ever imagined possible.
Death is like invisible ink on the blank paper of each day. Stare at its message every day and see nothing, until suddenly the words take shape on the page and bells toll in the distance. You will hear them and not ask, and it will be over before I can even part my lips in protest.
I don't know it yet, but I'm about to find out who my friends are. Cards and letters will flood my mailbox and Hallmark will get the chance to say it one more time, much better than you could. Flowers will decorate my living room, displaying their beauty in a glorious cascade of color, until they fade and wilt. Severed from the nourishment of their life-giving plant, they cannot survive. I will stare at them for weeks, dead in their vases, before I throw them away and weep to think of how innocent they seem.
Strangers will tell me how sorry they are for my loss, and then walk away into their own lives, never knowing how much you meant to me or that I don't think I can go on without you.
About a million or so times, I will wish I had found a reason to keep you home today. Even if I couldn't change destiny, holding you for one more day would have been a precious gift to treasure. I will cry until I have no tears and wonder if I'm capable of surviving the numbness creeping across my broken heart.
My entire world just ended. I will survive because God's loving arms will hold me up, when I can't bear to stand alone and His comfort will sustain me through this terrible trial. I just don't know it yet.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Alone, Or Not.
(A biographical true story)
Thirty seconds on the phone, and my heart was pounding. "What do you mean you're in town?" I gasped through the static to my older son. Repositioning my cell phone, I listened to his response. It was simple. Both teenage sons, thinking the other was babysitting, had left my nine-year-old daughter home alone. Alone, all day, on a farm, with the nearest neighbor a half-mile away, and a major winter storm building on the radar.
With my new off-the-farm job, our family had been forced to make adjustments, and this was a minor hiccup, or so both sons assured me, as I called back and forth between them to see who could get back home quicker.
My shift didn't end for another eight hours. Add the pending snow storm to the equation, and the only 4WD in our possession being parked outside my work, and you might understand my concern.
After arranging for one son to come pick up the 4WD and return to the farm, I placed a call to my daughter. Four rings and the voice-mail kicked in. I tried again. This time, I heard someone pick up.
"Hi, honey," I said. A distinct click in my ear was the only response. The call had disconnected.
This was not like my daughter. I tried again, and this time received the busy signal. I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the panic needling my stomach. We have a call-waiting feature, and never receive a busy signal unless something has gone wrong with the line.
My overactive writer's imagination jumped into hyper-drive. I pictured one scenario after another, involving an injured child; child molesters, serial killers -- if you can imagine it, I probably was.
I called my son, Sam. "Are you on your way?"
"Just leaving my girlfriend's house," he replied.
"Hurry!" I shouted down the line, wondering if my next call should be to the police.
Instead I dialed home, and this time my daughter, Amber, answered.
"Are you okay? Is anybody else there? Sam is on his way to get you," I said, before pausing to take a breath.
"I'm fine. Why is Sam coming to get me?" Amber asked.
"Because I don't want you home alone. He's going to take you back to town to stay with him at his girlfriend's house. She's babysitting her little sister today, too."
With that information relayed and a promise she'd call when Sam arrived, I was finally able to get back to what I should have been doing all along -- working.
That night, in the barn, doing chores together, I hugged my daughter and said, "I'm so sorry you were left home alone. I hope you weren't too scared."
She shook her head and smiled. "Well, Mom. I wasn't alone."
"How do you figure?" I asked.
She looked at me with a puzzled glance, and responded in the slow, serious voice of someone explaining something very obvious to a person who needs help to understand.
"God was with me. He kept me company. He says, I will never leave you or forsake you. He is always with me." Giving me another hug, she added, "Safe in His arms, Mom, remember?"
She was quoting from one of her favorite songs, Safe, by Phil Wickham. I love that song.
My eyes filled with tears, and I held her tight. "Of course, honey. Silly me."
As she skipped back to the house through the drifting snow, I looked up at the sky, whispered, "Thank you," and felt His presence and love surround me.
How could I have forgotten in all those calls, to call on the One who loves us more than we can ever comprehend? My daughter, while trying to answer my call earlier that day, had become confused on which button she needed to press to receive the call waiting, but she wasn't confused when it came to the most important thing of all: her faith in God.
Oh, for the faith of a child.
Thirty seconds on the phone, and my heart was pounding. "What do you mean you're in town?" I gasped through the static to my older son. Repositioning my cell phone, I listened to his response. It was simple. Both teenage sons, thinking the other was babysitting, had left my nine-year-old daughter home alone. Alone, all day, on a farm, with the nearest neighbor a half-mile away, and a major winter storm building on the radar.
With my new off-the-farm job, our family had been forced to make adjustments, and this was a minor hiccup, or so both sons assured me, as I called back and forth between them to see who could get back home quicker.
My shift didn't end for another eight hours. Add the pending snow storm to the equation, and the only 4WD in our possession being parked outside my work, and you might understand my concern.
After arranging for one son to come pick up the 4WD and return to the farm, I placed a call to my daughter. Four rings and the voice-mail kicked in. I tried again. This time, I heard someone pick up.
"Hi, honey," I said. A distinct click in my ear was the only response. The call had disconnected.
This was not like my daughter. I tried again, and this time received the busy signal. I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the panic needling my stomach. We have a call-waiting feature, and never receive a busy signal unless something has gone wrong with the line.
My overactive writer's imagination jumped into hyper-drive. I pictured one scenario after another, involving an injured child; child molesters, serial killers -- if you can imagine it, I probably was.
I called my son, Sam. "Are you on your way?"
"Just leaving my girlfriend's house," he replied.
"Hurry!" I shouted down the line, wondering if my next call should be to the police.
Instead I dialed home, and this time my daughter, Amber, answered.
"Are you okay? Is anybody else there? Sam is on his way to get you," I said, before pausing to take a breath.
"I'm fine. Why is Sam coming to get me?" Amber asked.
"Because I don't want you home alone. He's going to take you back to town to stay with him at his girlfriend's house. She's babysitting her little sister today, too."
With that information relayed and a promise she'd call when Sam arrived, I was finally able to get back to what I should have been doing all along -- working.
That night, in the barn, doing chores together, I hugged my daughter and said, "I'm so sorry you were left home alone. I hope you weren't too scared."
She shook her head and smiled. "Well, Mom. I wasn't alone."
"How do you figure?" I asked.
She looked at me with a puzzled glance, and responded in the slow, serious voice of someone explaining something very obvious to a person who needs help to understand.
"God was with me. He kept me company. He says, I will never leave you or forsake you. He is always with me." Giving me another hug, she added, "Safe in His arms, Mom, remember?"
She was quoting from one of her favorite songs, Safe, by Phil Wickham. I love that song.
My eyes filled with tears, and I held her tight. "Of course, honey. Silly me."
As she skipped back to the house through the drifting snow, I looked up at the sky, whispered, "Thank you," and felt His presence and love surround me.
How could I have forgotten in all those calls, to call on the One who loves us more than we can ever comprehend? My daughter, while trying to answer my call earlier that day, had become confused on which button she needed to press to receive the call waiting, but she wasn't confused when it came to the most important thing of all: her faith in God.
Oh, for the faith of a child.
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