But sometimes they make me laugh. I’d rather be
laughing. We laughed a lot, you and me. Not that I was ever as good at laughing
at myself as you were. I remember the night you woke me up from a sound sleep,
laughing so hard that you were shaking the bed. As usual when you were cracking
up, you couldn’t tell me what was so funny for at least twenty minutes. At that
point, all that was left for me to do was make you a pot of coffee and get up.
Which I would have done if I drank coffee and it wasn’t one o’clock in the
morning.
When the story finally came out, you told me your back
and waist were so itchy that you got up to put lotion on your skin. But you
didn’t want to wake me. You always tried not to wake me. So, that night you didn’t turn the light on in our
room, and by the time you realized you’d just rubbed liquid hand soap into your
waist and back instead of the lotion standing right next to that bottle of
soap, you had to get in the shower to wash it all off. And that’s when you
started laughing, all the way through drying off and climbing back into bed.
Nobody I know has ever laughed at themselves better
than you did. You were always my hero, but you never took yourself as seriously
as I did.
Except when it came to the responsibilities you
accepted and the way you cared for your family. Then you couldn’t be swayed or
distracted. You took it personally when anyone questioned your character or
motives. You hid your feelings a lot, but when it came to the things you
believed in and stood for, everyone knew where the line in the sand was with
you.
I knew you so well. I didn’t even know how well I knew
you until I lost you. There’s a lot I didn’t know until that happened. I didn’t
know until after you passed how much you loved writing poetry even though you wrote a lot of poetry to me and
about us. Thank God I kept all of it. Now and then I run across something you
wrote at exactly the moment that I need it. It’s almost like you’re still
writing poetry to me from heaven.
About a year ago, or maybe three years ago, I don’t
know—time is irrelevant at this point—I heard someone, probably another widow,
say that she knew that her husband held her in his heart even though he’d
passed. Sometimes in the years since you left, due in large part to the immense
silence that you left behind (not exactly the keepsake I would have chosen), I’ve
wondered if you remember me at all. I’ve remarked many times that I know you’re
really happy living with Jesus now and that there’s such freedom in that
existence that you’d never want to come to live here again. I’m sure that’s
true. And anyway, how can I compete with that? I can’t. Thoughts like those
lead to a lot of sadness and tears and you’re not here to wrap your arms around
me now and tell me that’s “goofy.”
Somehow, on that very day when I questioned whether you left everything behind, including all memories of our life together and perhaps even me, I ran across a Valentine’s Day card you wrote to me in 2018, three years before you passed. There was a sweet note from you on one side and a poem you wrote on the other.
You see, yesterday was five years since Katy and I drove up the
mountain to the hospital in the middle of the covid craziness to give you what
you told the doctors you needed—freedom from your broken body and the life
support that held you captive. We sat at your bedside all afternoon and evening
until, at three in the morning, after I’d been in a chair for fourteen hours holding
your hand with Katy seated on the other side of your bed, I began to fail. I’d
only been out of the hospital for a month and was still on oxygen. I ended up kissing
you goodbye while you were in a coma and leaving to get some sleep. I never saw
you again. You passed before I could return.
And I’ve felt so guilty about that. I’ve worked
through it over and over again, knowing you were too pragmatic to expect me to
stay so long that night that I’d end up being re-admitted to the same hospital I’d
just been released from because, while I waited at your side, my oxygen level
was dropping. It makes sense on paper that I left to get some rest. But in the
arena of life and death, why couldn’t I have just stayed so you’d know when you
took your last breath that I was there with you?
So, that poem. Here’s what you wrote three years prior
to that terrible last day.
As I wake each morning and hear you softly
breathe,
I feel your warmth beside me and I never want to leave.
So as the sun lifts higher beckoning each day to start,
Though I rise and leave you sleeping, you’re carried in my heart.
I found out later from the stories I watched and read
about people who’ve had near-death experiences, that when the soul separates
from the body, your senses become multiplied beyond imagination, especially
when it comes to what you can see. People reported that they could see not only
the medical team trying to resuscitate their body, but they saw things and
people outside the building, in other rooms in the hospital, even in other
buildings, simultaneously at times.
When I heard that, I realized that when you rose you
saw me sleeping at Dan and Katy’s nearby cabin. And when you left us, you
carried me, and all of us, in your heart with you. I realized that you never
wanted to leave us. And that you knew I didn't want to leave you that night. I know it sounds crazy to even worry about such a thing,
but that’s part of grieving. There are too many questions, too many why’s, and
too few answers on this side of heaven.
You continue to love us and know us from where you are,
baby. And there’s this other amazing mystery, too. I know that “because of his
great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even
when we were dead in our sins. It is by grace you have been saved. And God
raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in
Christ Jesus.”
It's all written in the present tense. Which means I’m already there, baby. I’m already there with you. I’m
just trapped right now by time and limited vision, but from the freedom of your
perspective, according to Ephesians chapter two, we’re together, raised up with
Christ, and seated together with Him. That really helps.
So, happy fifth heavenly birthday, as some call it. Or
heavenly arrival date. Although, since you live outside of time, you probably
don’t know it’s been five years today. I just want you to know I carry you in
my heart, too. And I can’t wait to call you ‘Baby’ in person again, outside of
time, raised in Christ, face to face with Jesus.
