In The Garden

I took a walk in the garden this morning. Maybe it was more like I took a stand. Or a lean. Okay, I was propped up outside the garden this morning.

My arms resting on the gate, I gazed through blurry eyes at the peaceful setting Katy and her friend created last month. Katy always says the garden is where she finds peace. Right now, all the beauty growing there is bringing her comfort and healing.

I’m invited to drop in anytime I feel like it. The raised beds are painted with patches of color. Orange mums, bright yellow California poppies, deep purple petunias, glossy green leaves of basil, while twin lettuce plants, left from the fall, threaten to go to seed at any moment. It's a soothing canvas of life.

There were two chairs against a wall on my left, cloaked in shade, inviting me to come sit, but I preferred standing—propping—where I could put my head in my hands and weep. It’s an odd way to water Katy’s garden, especially since I was standing ten feet away but, right now, I’m watering everything in my path like that—my shirt, my laptop, my daughter’s shoulder.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I cried at the garden gate today. “Please help me, God. I miss him so much.” And then, in the hope that it’s true Rob can hear me, I added, “I love you, Rob.”

But there was no reply. The only sound came from the happy animals in Katy’s pasture. I envy them. Life is simple when you’re a pig. Or a sheep. Or duck or chicken. Eat, sleep, act ridiculous and selfish, repeat as needed. No sorrow. No pity parties. No shame. Just be who you are. There’s a lot to be said for you doing you.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

My journey with God for the last thirty years has been the discovery of who He says I am. Identity is everything. It’s different from performance or talent or career. God gives it to us—we don’t earn it. Rob grasped that better than anyone I’ve ever known. He lived it out because it was who he really was. He helped me understand it, too. That’s the reason our Tahoe has OVRCMR personalized on its plate--"Overcomer" in license plate shorthand. Being an overcomer is part of the identity God gives His kids. I drive that word around with me to remind me of the truth.

But this morning, standing at that garden gate, I felt like a poser. My head was down. My courage missing in action. I loved being Rob's wife. That's who I've been for forty-four years. We've been a team. Never one without the other. "RobAndEula." It rolled off the tongue. Or "RobAndI." Now it's just me. Stranded by circumstances I didn't sign up for. Forced to deal with destruction without my teammate at my side. 

Some overcomer I am, I thought. I should rip that license plate right off the truck. All this time, telling people that Jesus is enough when the going gets tough, and look at me now. I’m a mess. It’s seven weeks today since Rob left us and I still can’t believe he’s gone most of the time. Shouldn’t I be getting a grip by now? Crying less. Accepting more? I’ve never felt grief at this magnitude before—I don’t know how it’s supposed to work. Or help.

My eyes swept across the garden while I wiped snot from my nose and soaked up the tears with the back of my hand. Pausing to look at the two empty chairs against the barn, something above them caught my attention. Another license plate, this one nailed to the wall instead of screwed onto a bumper. While I chose the plate for our Tahoe, Rob wanted this one on his Dodge Dakota. HOLDFST, it read. I gave it to Katy when I sold his truck and this is where she decided to hang it.

Facing her garden where her soul goes to be restored.

Rob loved that phrase and the history of it. According to Clan MacLeod, late one night the clan’s third chief was confronted by a wild bull which was notorious for terrorizing the locals. He jumped on its back, struggling with it and nearly losing the fight, when a bunch of his own clansmen heard the commotion and crowded around the strange wrestling match. “Hold fast, MacLeod!” they yelled. “Hold fast!” He did and, in the end, he killed the ornery bull with his dirk. The shout of his own people became the motto of Clan MacLeod and of my McLeod, Roby.

Hold fast. When you’re losing your grip. Hold fast. When hope is fading. Hold fast. When the odds are against you. Hold fast. We’re here, cheering you on. You can do this. Hold fast.

I don’t know how to do this, I keep crying to God. I don’t know how to start over at sixty-two. I don’t know how to be happy again. I don’t know how to forget the painful parts of Rob’s last days or the shock that he wasn’t going to make it after all. I don’t understand. There’s no road map for this terrible journey. I don’t know how I’ll get through his memorial this summer or our anniversary in the fall or the Christmas season after that.

Or the rest of my life, without him.

Hold fast, the sign insisted. A simple answer to faith in conflict. I stopped crying and switched my focus to the garden where my daughter had appeared, kneeling, plucking small weeds from the damp soil. “You okay, Mama?” she asked, glancing up at my tear-stained face.

I told her about feeling like a broken record and how I thought I should pull the OVRCMR plate off the Tahoe and throw it out. “Every day I’m struggling,” I said. “I miss your dad so much. I miss talking with him. I miss his voice. I don’t know when it will ever get better.” She went back to her weeding, listening while I told her about the two license plates. Then she looked up again.

“I think Dad’s still talking to you,” she said quietly. “He’s telling you to hold fast, Overcomer.”

It sounded just like something her father would say. She’s so much like her dad, it amazes me. The way she listens, summarizes, reminds me of truth. Her brother does the same thing as I talk with him at night. My family. All cut from the same McLeod cloth. All cheering me on, even while their own hearts are hurting. And healing.

Hold fast, Overcomer. You’re still an overcomer whether you feel like it or not. You didn’t earn that identity—it was given to you. Or, in the words of a mentor Rob and I both admired who first taught us about our identity in Christ, Believe that it’s so, even when it’s not so, so that it can be so.

In other words, Hold Fast. Hang on. You’re gonna get through this. We're all rooting for you. Just Hold Fast.

Rob is still talking to me.