Gifts and Ignoring It

July 7, 2008

Gifts from my son

Daniel left us many gifts, including some records of his thinking about life, God, and more.  The greatest two gifts I have uncovered thus far are his very public self-introduction on Facebook, and a more private email that he sent just two weeks before his death to a group of close friends from high school days.  His Facebook introduction says:

“It's funny (and way awesome) that, despite all of my best efforts, JESUS still loves me and continues recreating me in HIS image, new every morning. I struggle, I fall, yet JESUS picks me up, and leads me back in the direction I need to be going.  My life is a continuous miracle of unceasing birth and glory and death and resurrection.  I am a disciple whom JESUS loves. And for that, I give HIM praise.”

As I struggle and fall along this path of grief, sorrow, and longing, I am challenged by my son’s words.  Is Jesus picking me and leading me back in the direction I need to be going?  In my head I believe that is happening; in my heart I continue to feel like I am struggling and actually down for the count, forever.

Daniel’s next line – “my life is a continuous miracle of unceasing birth and glory and death and resurrection” is beautiful, especially since this is his adaptation of a line straight out of his favorite e.e.cummings’ poem, I am a Little Church.

In fact, the idea that my 18 year old son could pull all of this together so well still blows me away!

His email to his buddies just 11 days before the accident is also stunning.

3:16pm Apr 15th
"Goodness, you are all some awesome crazy people and I love you all more than you know or I can tell you.  And this is life, it smacks you in the face, it blesses you in countless ways, it confuses you to the point where you forget who you are and where you're going. God hasn't shown me a lot lately, I think He's trying to get it into my head that He is so much in control, anything and everything in my life is in His hands. And I am struggling. I am struggling to let go. I want to stress about where my life is going, who I am, who I become, and how I affect people. God wants me to care; He doesn't want me to worry. ‘Beautiful is the moment in which we understand that we are no more than an instrument of God; we live only as long as God wants us to live; we can only do as much as God makes us able to do; we are only as intelligent as God would have us to be.’ Archbishop Oscar Romero's words seem so right in my head, but I am struggling to take them to heart..... a lot. I guess my prayer for myself and for all of you lovely people is that of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, ‘not my will but Yours be done.’ I pray that we can live ‘in the deathless Truth of His presence’ because this is life.  This is what God gave us.  Rejoice and be glad. I love you all, but God loves you more, good thing.  Love and Peace."

There is more in this long paragraph than I have energy or ability to digest right now, but what an amazing gift Daniel was and what amazing gifts he left behind through his writing.

Now if only I had just one more chance to listen to him speak these words and not just have to read them . . . .

July 9, 2008

 
Ignoring it does not make it better

 Today we experienced another awkward moment – I saw someone for the first time since the service and they seemed oblivious to “the question” that Carol and I so desperately need to be asked – how are you doing with your grief?  Or, just about any variation on this theme would work, even to stumble around searching for some way of asking is better than just smiling at me and acting like life is simple when it is so overwhelmingly complicated.

And to top this off, this all involved a pastor, the person one would think is trained to deal with people like me.