No introduction, no conclusion. Perhaps someday I will think of how to frame these word pictures.
April
1962: Excited to share the big news in
first grade Show and Tell, I started to explain that my grandma had died over
the weekend. No one was more shocked
than I was when I burst into tears and could not stop crying. My teacher sent for my eight-year-old sister
to comfort me.
November
1962: Six months later,
Grandpa died. We kids were not allowed
to attend the funeral, but we were at the funeral dinner held afterwards in his
big house in the country. Happy to see so
many of our relatives, I thought to myself, “It would be a perfect day if
Grandpa were here.” But I also knew that
Grandpa and Grandma were together in heaven.
Sometimes I talked to Grandpa about how much I missed him.
December
1974: Cousin Dee died in a car wreck her
senior year in high school, my sophomore year in college. Just a week before her death, she had given
her life to Christ at a youth crusade.
June 1975: The next summer, my father died. It felt strange to think of him gone for good
since he had been gone from our lives for so many years. His life had been one big train wreck, but I
still hoped that he came to Jesus at the very end.
October
2009: I knew my sister was going to die
soon. After all, I had been with her for
the past two months since the surgery that revealed inoperable cancer. Though
there had already been many tears, I howled with grief the day after. My solace had come the day she died, when I
sensed her passing by, her young self again, flying off to heaven.
May
2013: Mom went quietly in the night,
less than a week after hospice care had started for her in the memory care
facility where she lived. Still, I was
unprepared for the hollowed-out grief that occupied my very soul. Why had I not realized just how much I loved
her before she was gone?
