Grief and Grace

It's been several days since my fingers have tapped the keyboard -- several busy, emotional, challenging, and grace-filled days. Two events occurred of great importance, both signifying an end to a journey, as well as a new beginning ...

On Thursday, my mom finished her last radiation treatment. She's done. She's healed. That journey -- so full of pain, emotion, fear, and grace -- is over. Praise the Lord for an end, and for the new beginning. She can grow her hair out. She can get her life back. She can travel. She can see her grand-triplets for the first time in the spring.

That same evening, my parents and I visited the funeral home to say good-bye to a beloved woman. Funerals are one of the most odd "life events" one can attend, so full of complexities -- sadness yet joy, emptiness yet fulfillment, an end yet a beginning, a parting and a reunion, of farewells and (re)connections. I think the event of my 100-year-old aunt's passing symbolizes far more than I can realize at the moment, remembering my aunt's journey and now her rest, learning so much from her as I journey on my own path. A lot has happened over these past few days, and the more I sit with it the more I believe I will come to realize just how profound it all really was.

Thursday night was a homecoming of sorts. I saw people I have not seen since I was a child. I was called "Susie" more times that evening than I can count, for that's what they called me then, a name which doesn't fit me anymore yet to them, somehow, time stands still. Most folks I remembered through a hazy childhood memory; a few I couldn't recall though they knew me well; still more I met for the very first time -- cousins and second cousins and other woodpile relations, all connected from that one beautiful, frail woman now at peace. It really blew me away.

It was emotional for me -- these things always are. The casket was open, and I was able to see my aunt for the last time -- a woman who was so frail, so small, so old. In some sense I didn't even recognize her, but then of course how could I not ... a woman who was always so sweet, so dear to me, my grandmother's younger sister. She looked very much like my maternal grandmother who died just four years ago, memories of that day and that loss intermingling with the present, adding to the grief. "Good-bye, Auntie," I whispered before I turned away to greet another new-to-me cousin. "I love you."

Why is death so hard? I believe in resurrection. I believe in God. I believe in heaven. I'm not sure how it all plays out, exactly, but I have hope. Why, then, is death such a blow to me? Why do I hate these good-byes? And yet, even in the midst of this, something pretty profound spoke to me, something I'm resting with. God was there in a quiet, powerful way. I'm listening.

A day of complexities. I loved my aunt dearly. I love my family. And the journey continues ...