Elephant Story

I am astonished that people want to read the sad things I’ve written for the last year. I never intended to do so. I’d rather be putting my funny bone to work telling stories about the hilarious way we all live our lives. But life isn’t always funny, is it? Sometimes your heart breaks and your normal disappears and you find yourself standing in a field of devastation where all that remains is your voice—and your pen. So, you write. Because it’s the only way you know how to cope.

By telling your story.

This isn’t the way I thought my story would turn out. It’s not the way I believed Rob’s story would end. When you’re a writer telling tales, you can change plot lines and create characters—complete with superpowers if you want to—and while the goal is to keep your reader’s hand at their throat while they worry that the bad guys will win and all will be lost—it never is. That only happens in real life where we don’t have control over anything except . . . well, actually, nothing comes to mind anymore.

We’re not in control of our story.

I had just written a new chapter for our story. All about how the mountains had called our name and we had to go. It was going to be our greatest adventure. We weren’t old, but we were headed there. It was our last chance, and we went for it. And if you follow my blogs closely, you’ll discover there’s a long gap in the narrative between when we answered the call of the wild during Christmas of 2020, and when I announced that my home address had changed. “This is where I live now,” I explained in early March, three months later. “In sadness.”

That Christmas post was the last time my story had a happy ending.

In about two weeks, a day I’ve dreaded for the last year will resurface. The first anniversary since we lost the most wonderful man my family has ever known. Through it all, the shock and numbness and shattering and surviving, you have been here. Standing beside us. Weeping with those who weep. Holding on to us so we wouldn’t collapse. Praying in the night when you couldn’t sleep, knowing we weren’t sleeping either. Sending us notes and flowers, bringing food and paying for Door Dash orders.

You did it all while you didn’t know what to do. You loved us while you watched us grieve. You were here even when our eyes were so blinded by tears we were unaware of your presence and could only see our own pain. You told us you didn’t know what to say. That you couldn’t imagine our agony. That you prayed so hard it hurt. And you told us you love us.

Then you proved it.

You stood by as a witness to our pain. That’s what shattered, grieving people need. We need a witness. We need someone who sees the hand life has dealt us and will acknowledge how unfair it is. We need people without answers. Eyes that don’t judge. Hands that comfort but don’t point fingers. When it feels like we’re the victims of a random act of violence, we need someone who has our back.

In the wild, when an elephant goes down due to illness or death, all the rest of the herd gather around the fallen one in a huge circle. They stay with the injured one for as long as it takes, sometimes crying, always watching, determined not to abandon the wounded. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they form a ring of love and care simply by being there. They don’t do anything more because they can’t. But their sturdy presence, this cloud of witnesses, provides emotional strength to the one on the ground like nothing else could while she endures what no one else can.

That’s what you have been to me and my family this year.

We’re so tempted to explain why bad things happen to good people, aren’t we? We long to be the hero and the fixer of broken hearts. We even want to save face for God, worried as we are that His reputation will be smudged if a believer questions His motives. I have been a Job’s friend to the grieving myself because I was afraid of the day when I would become Job.

I’m not afraid anymore. I am here.

For now, I’m the one who is grieving. I will grieve for a long time. And that’s normal. I know it’s hard to watch. It takes an enormous amount of patience to allow it to happen while you stand by helplessly with your feet itching and your trunk swinging around aimlessly. But to you, my beloved elephants, I extend my eternal gratitude and love. Thank you for being here. For standing beside me and my family. For refusing to think you can fix our brokenness and for insisting on loving us as we are. You have been witnesses to our pain. That’s what we have needed most.

Because of you, we will get up again. We will stand tall in our grief. We will walk into the next chapter of our story with our heads held high, knowing how well we were loved by Rob and how well we are loved by you.

You have done this for us. You, my friends, are awesome elephants.

With gratitude to Jim and Robin Kunze for permission to use their photo seen above. The original can be viewed by following this link: 

Elephants | Denver Zoo | Jim & Robin Kunze | Flickr