Oddly Blogging

I said in an earlier blog that I would be journaling the old-fashioned way – but I think I lied.

I think I may blog,  just one more time, on the process I’m following, trying to heal some from my cousin’s death when we were kids.  Mostly because, as I’ve been following that process, death has visited me in several other, unexpected ways.  I’m a big fan of the idea that nothing happens by coincidence – it’s just whether we’re attending to what is happening and can make good use of it.

So – how has death, in its’ many forms, come to my door, lately, you ask?

Well (in no particular order) I almost got creamed on the road in the last week – in a mind-boggling instant, I went from driving along our country roads, to realizing that I had almost had a life-ending wreck, missing an oncoming pick-up truck by no more than foot, traveling in my lane (2-lane road) at 75 mph.  I realized just how quickly one can be gone.  As the song says, we shall be changed in an instant – I have a vastly different understanding of that statement now.

Not to mention that I felt like a living model of a math/physics problem: if you’re traveling 45 mph, southbound and a full-sized pickup is traveling northbound at 75 mph in your lane, blah, blah, blah…those 2 trains from Algebra suddenly had passengers.

While I’ve processed, so to speak, several friends have had close calls with loved ones – moments where you can really see the miracle that happened.  Thank you God, for each and every one of them.  That was a lot of knocks, but maybe not on my door, as much as my neighbor’s door, if you know what I mean.

As it knocks again, my daughter, age 13, has a friend (a classmate) who has begun receiving Hospice services due to a brain tumor.  Another is battling a cancer that he has conquered multiple times since he was first diagnosed at age 15 months. Yes, that’s right, my seventh grader has 2 friends battling serious forms of cancer.  That is surreal to me – even with my death-laden past, junior high was not a time that we dealt with the deaths of our peers, certainly not terminal diagnoses or hospice care for my friends.  I’m sure that part of my healing process has been prompted by the Allknowing’s knowledge that she will need me to be a healthier hand for her to hold through this than I was at the start.

And again, death knocks – the responses to my earlier blog about Donald have been awesome – and educational.  I learned that many of the adults in my world thought that I didn’t really think anything about Donald dying, because I didn’t say much, do much about it at the time.  But, as an adult, I’m sure I was thinking that I wasn’t supposed to talk about it – it wasn’t “nice”.  So it has done both me and them some good to know that I hurt then – and now – and still think of him often.  That aspect has been very much like a big group hug.

Since then I’ve had other memories shine forth – some sweet, some bitter.  Donald and I climbing on Jividen’s Rocks (a neighbor’s backyard had HUGE boulders in it that we loved to climb on), playing Clue, sitting on the supporting crossbars of the oak dining table while the dads, granddads and uncles played cards above our heads.  How small his casket was compared to the others I had seen (and sadly, by age 8, I had seen many) – and that I realized sitting in the church during his funeral that his small white casket was kid-sized.  Not like Pa’s or Aunt Madge’s.

Then, this morning, one of the radio people on my favorite Christian station was talking about the Easter service yesterday and how her pastor had talked about when Jesus was brought to the little girl, to bring her back from the dead (Luke 8:40), and he had said, rise up little girl – with the words for ‘little girl’ actually being an endearment – and that one day we will all wake up that way, to God saying, ‘wake up little one’.

Now – first, if this doesn’t fit your spiritual beliefs, I’ll have to play the this-is-my-process card, and they are my beliefs.  But everyone has to find a place that their spiritual beliefs leads them to – even atheists should be able to perceive that their spiritual beliefs lead them to a particular place in terms of death, or, well, really anything.

So, I found it comforting that Donald went to sleep on this side and woke up, on the other side, with Jesus reaching out His hand, saying, wake up little one.  That I can see him getting up from that bed and running and playing, grabbing his grandmother, who had just passed the year before, and hugging her and our great-grandfather and telling them that he loved them.

Does that make me miss him less?  No.  But it does make my loss feel more temporary.  And that is comforting.

This rambling has brought me to where?  Well, I can see that I have a different perspective of Donald’s death now – hopefully having brought my childhood experience through my adult filters.  It makes me just as sad – but in a different way.  It feels more manageable now – something I am more capable of getting my arms around.  And more capable of helping my daughter through.

And really, this is the whole purpose of blogging for me – so that the experiences I’ve had – bitter or sweet – can have some purpose, not just for myself, but for others.

What an eye-opening moment to realize I’ve actually achieved my purpose in a moment of struggle.