“How do I love you well as this day approaches?”
This was the question my roommate asked me as we drove to Costco on a Sunday afternoon. 18 years. It will be 18 years this Saturday since my dad went home to be with Jesus. This isn’t a new topic for me to write about. If anything, it feels like the topic I write about the most. To be honest, after writing an entire book about it, I thought maybe I was even done writing about it. What possibly could there be left to say?
That wasn’t until I remembered that there is a reason the last chapter in my book is titled “days to come.” Loss never becomes something that quietly dissolves as time goes on. It is not something that has momentary effects. There have been many days my dad hasn’t been here for over the last 18 years but as time goes on – he misses even more. The aftermath effects of loss keep showing up. I don’t say that so that my message here is to steer us in the direction of believing that we just stay stuck in our losses because we never stop being affected by them. That is not my intention at all.
I say it because it feels like as time goes on, the more tempted I am to believe that I can’t have the conversation about it anymore. As times goes on, it is like the enemy can make us believe we have should have sailed away from the island of “this is hard.”
It isn’t true. We cannot let him steal the right we have to keep having the conversation. I say it because even before my roommate asked me this question I had written in my journal, “I just don’t want people to forget.” I believe that our losses and hardships comes with two parts. 1. We want people to acknowledge our pain. 2. We want people to remember.
This isn’t a cry for attention or an ask for all of my friends to call me up on Saturday and tell me how sorry they are. This isn’t me needing those around me to grab me a box of tissues and sit on the couch with me to watch romantic comedies. Not at all. This is a reminder to myself and hopefully an encouragement to someone else that we are not grief graduates. It just starts to look different. Grief is so many things. It is deep. It is messy. It is unpredictable. But it can also be tamed. It can be functional. It can be calm. Grief can be the art of remembering.
I want to remember. I want to remember the loss that took place. I want to remember because remembering reminds me that it does still matter and it is allowed to. It doesn’t have to be the billboard size moments where there is a component of “of course that was hard.” It is all the moments in between too.
I love how the Lord works. I spent 6 years writing an entire book about so many of the “big” moments of life that I had to learn to navigate without my dad present. Yet, ever since the release of my book I feel like the Lord has directed my thinking towards understanding that it is not just the big. It is like He has been teaching me how to be multi-directional empathetic, towards myself and toward others. There truly is not a quantifier when it comes to the feelings of our losses.
I told my roommate that the greatest thing anyone could do was to acknowledge the day. Almost like a way of saying to me, “we have not forgotten about this.” I realized very quickly that often we can desire for other people to do what we have full permission to do ourselves.
I am allowed to remember.
People don’t talk about year 18. They talk about year 1. They talk about the first. They talk about year 5. Yet, in this weird way I believe that Lord has called me not to be the conversation initiator but the conversation continuer. It has dawned on me recently that because I was so young when my dad passed that I wasn’t someone who was aware of those early years of loss. I wasn’t someone who was talking about it or writing about. Yet here I am at age 26, able to articulate and comprehend what this day means now. Those early years weren’t my years. These later years have been. So I want to talk about year 18.
So today, I want to talk about the unexpected little moments. Because that is what year 18 has been for me. It was the year where there were subtle moments of pain. It wasn’t Father’ Day or my birthday. It was the little things. It was interviewing for two different jobs and not being able to sit down and ask him what he thought was a better business move. It was not being able to pick up the phone to talk about 401k’s and insurance plans. It was a cracked windshield on my new car and a blown electrical fuse. In those moments a reaccepting is required of me all over again – my dad isn’t here and this is my story.
That can feel like a daunting thought but really it has a been a reminder to me of how much God’s grace is evident in our journeys’. It is a reminder of how kind He is and how incredibly patient He is with me. He has never asked for this to be a one-time thing. He knew this grief of mine would not be a “one and done.” He knew that I would come back to Him time and time again with the ache of missing my dad. He knew the conversation wouldn’t end. He gives me permission to keep approaching Him with the same topic.
We don’t have to stop having the conversation. We can talk about year 18 and all the years following. I think a part of me believed the lie that because I have so bodily talked about the healing the Lord has done in my heart since the loss of my father that to revisit the topic was to be hypocritical. Maybe that doesn’t resonate with anyone else but something tells me I am not the only one.
I believe that people have been ensnared by this thinking that we go back on our word and everything we have ever testified about if we revisit the topic. Remembering what has been lost and talking about it – that does not take away from what God has done. Having these moments of sadness or hurt, even after so much time has passed – it doesn’t discredit a single thing. Hurt doesn’t mean not healed.
I am not sure where we started making ourselves operate as if the two are exclusive. The process of healing and grieving is an ongoing thing. I believe that until we arrive at heaven’s gates, God will be mending our hearts from this broken world we live in. Our faith in Him, our declaration of the gospel, our redemption stories we have shared, none of it means that a lingering won’t happen. None of it means that a re-entry of hurt wouldn’t come.
Maybe we aren’t ever fully healed from the pain we experience while here on earth. But we are fully free. We are free to keep having the conversation. We are free to remember. We are free to hurt. We are free to talk about year 18. My friends, don’t buy into the lie that people are tired of hearing about it. Don’t buy into the lie that people have expected you to move on. Don’t buy into the lie that any progress you feel like you have made is dismissed by needing to be honest and say, “this is still a thing.”
Terms of measurement can be put to rest. God does not need us to measure our pain. He also doesn’t need us to try to measure our healing. To me, we only measure in places where we think we need to prove something. He isn’t that kind of God. I am not more healed if I stop talking about my dad. I am not more healed if I stop missing him. I am not less healed if I feel hurt again. No my friends, that isn’t how this works.
I am heading into this week different than I have before. I don’t feel overly emotional and consumed with sadness. That can sometimes make me think that I don’t have a right to talk about it anymore then. It goes back to what I said earlier though – grief can be calm.
I need you to know that you have nothing to prove here. I say that to you while saying it to me.
I grieve this week. I grieve differently than I have before. I grieve by remembering. This loss happened. This loss still affects me. This is a still a thing. This is something I still need to talk about. I remember.
For so long November 21st was only seen as “the day my dad died.” While it is that, the Lord showed me something new this year. Because of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. Because He made a way for us to be reconnected to the Father. Because I know my earthly father was a man who walked with the Lord – November 21st wasn’t just a day death happened. It was also a day a miracle took place. It was the day my dad entered the throne room of grace. It was the day he heard with his own ears the melodies of the angels. It was the day his eyes saw Jesus face to face. Jesus changes the story. This day is not confined to one narrative. Death happened but because of Jesus so did life – eternal life.
I have been reading in Revelation this week. Not somewhere I typically find myself in but that thought of the miracle of heaven after death on earth has made me want remind myself – this is what my dad is in the presence of. This is the miracle our faith leads us to
“And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” Revelation 1:12-18
Eyes like fire. Hair like wool. A voice sounding like rushing water. A hand full of stars. A face shining like the sun. This. This is what my dad is gazing upon. Oh, my friends, death cannot be the main part of the conversation when this is part of the story. The beautiful thing is that while I know my dad is there, I also know there is a place for me there too one day.
The miracle is for all of us.
I am remembering this year. I am remembering more than just the death of my father. I am remembering the miracle of heaven. This is taking new ground. This is continuing the conversation but changing the dialogue. This is what the enemy doesn’t want. This is the language of faith.
This is exactly what we must do.
