Storytelling

“There was another life I might have had, but I am having this one.”

Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go

It’s been nearly five years since Rachel was killed. Shortly afterwards, Jill and I had dinner with a couple who had lost their son nearly ten years earlier. I knew they knew how we felt because already the man had asked me questions I hadn’t told anybody were on my mind. The burning question, I think, for both me and Jill the night we had dinner was: “Will we ever get over this?”

From my current vantage point, I can see the foolishness of the question. Then, we hadn’t yet fully absorbed the reality of what we were facing: the rest of our lives without our daughter. We were desperate for hope from someone who had walked the road ahead of us. The couple answered our question as compassionately and honestly as they could. Ten years after his death, they told us, they still weren’t over the loss of their son. For as long as they walked this earth, they never expected they would be. The going get easier, but it never gets easy; the hurt gets better, but it never goes away. We should have known. They had learned to live without him, as harsh as that may sound. In Life of Pi, Yann Martel says, “You can get used to anything...isn’t that what all survivors say?” And while getting accustomed to the loss of a child seems at first unimaginable, undesirable, heartless even, it ends up, after all, to be sadly, horrifically...possible. Perhaps even necessary. Our hearts sank there at the table as we imagined the road ahead. We didn’t want to drink this cup, but drink it we would, together. A bitter communion. 

The man we had dinner with occasionally attended and preached at our church. He had formerly been an elder. I took his place on the board. The couple had ceased attending before Jill and I began. I don’t think we had met the woman before the night of our dinner. Though I never knew exactly why she quit going to church with her husband, it is reasonable to assume she had spiritual difficulties in the aftermath of her son’s death that made it impossible for her. They may have had some understandable and all too common marital problems. I detected some uncharitable attitudes about her and the choices they had made... 

In the days before Rachel’s death I thought of the man as a tragic and somewhat heroic figure. I admired him, but, of course, I did not envy him. I remember being always aware of his loss, even when it wasn’t explicitly mentioned or acknowledged. Like talking to someone behind glass. You can have a normal enough conversation, but there’s always that between you. Content to just admire and pity him from a distance, I never wanted to know how this man had managed to survive. Like most, I didn’t think I could. I recognized it could have been me in his shoes, but I was so shamefully relieved I didn’t have to wear them that I never wanted to tempt fate by getting too close.

I recently heard a radio broadcast of a Jewish mother who had lost her son to a Palestinian sniper. She said that those who manage to survive the loss of a child must choose to live. Is that what happened? Did I choose to survive? I don’t remember, not consciously, anyway. Many nights I would have been content to close my eyes on this world and wake up in the next… But there is always something that must be done in the morning.

Predictably, Jill and I quit attending church. We made a valiant attempt to hang in there; we really did. But after some developments that required further commitment and demanded more involvement, we finally had a long talk in the hot tub and confessed to each other that we simply no longer had the heart for it. Though I still cannot articulate why, church had become more hurtful than helpful for both of us, and we couldn't stand pretending otherwise any more. We realized that we weren’t serving anyone, least of all ourselves, by staying there when we lacked any true desire. We haven’t been back to the last church we attended as an intact family since the end of last December. It turned out to be almost like an unintentional New Year’s resolution - except that we have uncharacteristically nearly perfectly kept it.  Our year without Jesus…

After writing that last sentence, I Googled it to see if anyone had written on that topic, and I found this blog post: https://rivercityrevolution.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/a-year-without-jesus/ The author speculates about the antithesis of a popular book from a few years back called, My Jesus Year. He qualifies his blog entry as merely “a thought experiment”, confesses how easy it would be to fall into the (bad, selfish, lazy) habits of “pretend atheism” and cautions people against actually trying the experiment for themselves at home. I have to admit, it’s scary how easy it is has been to drop the routine of a lifetime.

It would be an exaggeration, though, to say that Jill and I have lived like atheists for the last year. Practical agnostics, maybe. The truth is, God is still a central figure in our lives, even though we are less certain than we have ever been about who He is, what He is like, and what we can expect from a relationship with Him.

God and church are two distinctly different things. The Bible asserts that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Jesus, Immanuel - God with us - made an unqualified promise that he would never leave us nor forsake us. I learned from Oswald Chambers that because we lose our old idea of God does not mean we have thereby lost God, and the loss of our former form of belief and the birth of a realization more closely approximating the truth is perhaps always and necessarily painful and traumatic. Did we really believe the truth could be cheaply and painlessly acquired? Doubt is as undeniable and inevitable in this life as pain, loss, confusion, and disappointment. Christ felt abandoned on the cross, but I don’t believe even he ever really lost God. I don’t think that is possible. I hope not. When walk out of church, God inhabits the world we encounter outside the door. I really believe God is always with us, as near to and indistinguishable from our very breath and being. 

Dan Haseltine, the lead singer of Jars of Clay, recently blogged about his break with the traditional evangelical church. He said, “I have to believe that God is in our story.” It isn’t good enough for him or for me anymore to be told what to believe about God. We each have our own experience that has brought us to the place where we now find, or have lost, ourselves. Through no fault of our own we have fallen out of step with the rest of the parade. It wasn’t our plan. I was content teaching Sunday School every Sunday, preaching, serving as an elder. I would happily have remained in that place if I hadn’t been removed by forces beyond my control. Sometimes, surrender is the only viable course of action. Maya Angelou said, “...life...taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, (is) as honorable as resistance, especially if one (has) no choice.” 

If God is in our story, and our story takes where we do not want to go, then it is an act of faith to surrender and trust that God has something vital to teach us along the way. Nothing else makes any sense to me. Right now it’s the only faith I have. In Life of Pi, the main character tells the inquiring writer that he will tell him a story that will make him believe in God. It is his story, of course. How else could he know? Martin Luther, the original Reformer, said, “God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also in the trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.” I would add, he also writes it in our hearts and with our lives. How else could we believe?

3:31...

I lay with my eyes closed in the darkness, awake.

*

The day before I carried the obvious truth like a hidden wound, acting as if I could live with it, as if anybody could. We had lunch with family in my sister’s restaurant, Farwood Bar & Grill. Unless you already knew the story, you could not have guessed. And I did enjoy our time together, because I realize more than ever that every moment with those we love is precious. But I am living a double life: living with gratitude while carrying this grief. Maybe life is never simple, but always double, triple, multiple. I walked around all day, thinking, “Four years ago today, this was the last day Rachel walked this earth. What was she doing at this moment four years ago? What was she thinking? What was I?” Blissfully ignorant. Thinking it would go on like this forever, or something approaching it. That there would always be more time…

I had a dream or a vision, what ever you would call it. Rachel pulled up to the curb in her Honda. Jill and I were out working in the yard. I put down whatever was in my hand and walked toward her with wonder. Jill too. Rachel jumped out of her car and ran across the yard to meet us, beaming, delighted, I think, to surprise us. She had been gone a long time, and we weren’t expecting her. There was this beautiful moment of joy before the realization that she was really dead and I was only dreaming...

It always feels like a betrayal to be able to go on living. Those who know better will say that is unhealthy thinking. It is, I know. I turned 50 on February 6. Jill and I spent the weekend in the Anderson Valley to celebrate our 24^th anniversary. We took the long way home, touring the wine country just waking into spring, and stopped at a couple of unique places to eat we had seen on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. It was a beautiful weekend in every way. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was taking my leave, saying goodbye, likely never to pass this way again. I was painfully conscious that I was just passing through, that this strange and beautiful world...this life...doesn’t belong to me anymore, if it ever did. Though we mostly don’t behave like guests, but rather like we own the place and are trying our best to use it up, the truth is that we are only visiting here. But I suspect it is a dangerous mistake to let that keep us from forming attachments…

So, my birthday, February 6, was a Monday. We were stepping back into our routine after our extraordinary weekend. I wanted to be big about it, so I got out of bed as usual, made the coffee while Jill took her shower, and then sat in bed to read to her from the Daily Bible. As I read, a horrible awareness crept upon me: This was the passage we had read the morning Rachel was killed. I tried to read as if nothing was wrong, like I didn’t notice, but Jill stopped me to confirm the realization that was dawning on her, too. It was 5:00 a.m. and, after that, my day was already over...

Of course, I wonder about such coincidence. The day before, while driving through the wine country, different renditions of Amazing Grace had played back-to-back on the iPhone we were playing on shuffle through the car stereo. I asked Jill if she thought my smart phone was smart enough to know it was Sunday. Or maybe it was a sign?

We are haunted by the presentiment that maybe there is more to this life than the surface suggests. And tortured by the misgiving that maybe there isn’t.

The passage from Proverbs for that same day says, “The Lord directs a person’s steps. Why should we fret to understand every step along the way?” It’s true, I don’t know where I am going, so it is impossible for me to judge whether I am taking one true step in the right direction. Wiser souls would counsel me to let it go and simply let it be what it is. I’m not there yet.

Jill and I are reading Joan Chittister’s spiritual memoir, “Called to Question.” I am surely contorting the passage to fit my own interpretation, but she says, “Life is not about getting God. Life is about growing in God.” Presumably, we are all always in God, because there is no outside. She goes on to say, “We ripen. We learn. We hurt. We survive one thing after another. And we go on...in the end, we gain what we came to get...One way or another life batters us until we get the unavoidable. Sometimes we get it with glory; sometimes we get it in disgrace…” The God who is life inexorably teaches us. We learn what we need to know. We are not our own. We do not know who or what we are to become. We simply trust the process, and the God of life whom we can only hope controls it.

What kind of terrible faith is this?

The morning I woke up to that passage, I took it as a cruel cosmic joke.

That is the human problem, older than Job, with which those who suffer struggle: Is the God who guides the process loving, indifferent, or malevolent? Does God torture us for amusement? What are we to make of this mess?

The problem with my interpretation of events is that it flies in the face of the message of the passage. It is the passage in Ezra that affirms, “God is good. His faithful love endures forever.”

In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, does love really guide the universe?

I have come to the conclusion that I over-reacted. I don’t blame myself. One emotional law I have learned is that in the absence of convincing proof to the contrary (and, really, what is proof?), the most loving explanation is correct. I guess you could call it the benefit of the doubt theorem...or the benefit of faith. If God really is good, as I have heard and still, tremulously, believe, and really does love me with a love that endures forever and transcends time and circumstance, then it is just possible that reading that passage on my 50^th birthday was God’s way of telling me I am loved - in spite of everything.

As Theodore Roethke said, “I learn by going where I have to go.”

*

This morning, February 21, 2012, I awoke and kept my eyes closed in the darkness. When I finally opened them and looked at the clock it was 3:31 a.m. One minute after Rachel was pronounced dead four years ago. The beginning of the rest of my life…

“I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.”

Theodore Roethke - “The Waking”

PACING THE CAGE

I’ve had this feeling my whole life but increasingly lately: Claustrophobia.

I know what lies behind the door of Room 101. Being trapped in a tight place is my worst fear. As a kid, a friend locked me in a refrigerator as a prank. He had no intention of leaving me in there, and I knew that. Nevertheless, I freaked out. While in college I went spelunking with friends in the mountains above U.C. Santa Cruz. I only reluctantly followed them into the barren dark and barely contained my growing panic as we squeezed ourselves into places I imagined any number of ways to be inextricable. As part of my job as an electrician I must often crawl into attics and under floors. Sometimes I have to close my eyes, imagine myself somewhere else, take a deep breath. I don’t know why I watched the movie Buried. It was a nightmare. I don’t want to be buried, even when I’m dead.

My best dreams are flying dreams. I still think it is big mistake that human beings were not made to fly. I know we can, with machines. But I mean really fly. I am haunted by the line from T.S.Eliot’s poem, The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock:

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

All that space above, and here I am stuck to the floor of the earth, crawling around like a bottom feeder. Flying feels so right and natural in my dreams…

I’ve been experiencing a growing anxiety, a rising sense of panic. I feel trapped on this earth, imprisoned in this flesh. Rachel is unreachable, and that evokes a feeling of helpless, inescapable confinement. I rise in the middle of the night, get out of bed, and walk around to shake off the chains. I look at the stars. But even all that space seems only an elaborate cage. Make it as large as you can, I still feel imprisoned.

Jill’s sister Lindsay and her family came up to visit us to ease the difficulty of the 4-year anniversary of Rachel’s death. We did something we had been wanting to do for years. Lindsay and Rachel shared a love of large cats. We took Lindsay to the Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Sanctuary, which houses an amazing collection of large, exotic cats. They are kept for their own good. For one reason or another, they could not survive in the wild. But that truth cannot be impressed upon them. When they are not sleeping, they restlessly pace the confines of their cage. It reminded me of the poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, called, The Panther:

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,

Has grown so weary that it cannot hold

Anything else. It seem to him there are

A thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world…

Rationally, I know that physical limitations define the terms of our freedom. We have five senses with which to perceive. But this feeling nips constantly at the back of my mind: what do they exclude? Perhaps they permit me only to perceive the prison, but not the real world beyond this captivity for which my heart yearns...

That night I had a dream: I was told that I would live to be 100 years old. The longevity that to most people may have been welcome news, seemed to me a cruel, intolerable sentence. 50 more years without Rachel. Another lifetime. In a reverse Hezekiah (2 Kings 20) I turned to the wall and wept inconsolably. I cried in anguish, “God, it’s too much… I cannot do it…” .

Sometimes you feel like you live too long.

Days drip slowly on the page.

You catch yourself

Pacing the cage.

Bruce Cockburn, “Pacing the Cage”

"Deep down I can't manage to become attached to this monkey-cage frenzy people so dramatically call life."

Rene Daumal, "Mount Analogue"

Life, just life is never

miracle enough no matter

how we try to church ourselves

Samuel Hazo, "For Anna Catherine On Thanksgiving"

This is not a death wish, but the acknowledgement of a restless, holy longing I think we all feel sometimes. I will wait. There is so much more to the story...

ACTS OF LOVE

I must be feeling better. I’ve been listening to Prefab Sprout. Headed by singer-songwriter, Paddy McAloon, the group has been around since the ‘80s. They make winsome music, the kind that makes you appreciate the miracle of life. In fact, that is the title of one of their songs: “Life’s A Miracle”

Tell someone you love them, there's always a way

And if the dead could speak I know what they would say

To you and me, don't waste another day

Show someone you love them, don't be scared to care

And if they fall into your arms you'll be surprised to find

The weight that you can bear, yeah, because

Life's a miracle

Paddy’s been dealing with some serious health issues lately, but he still writes beautiful, uplifting music.

One of my favorite P.S. songs is called “One of the Broken.” Paddy puts words in God’s mouth. God acknowledges the communication problem between him and his children. He advises those who want to connect with him to reach out to the broken, hurting people in the world. It’s a song inspired by Jesus’ identity with the least among us. A lesson in kindness. A lesson in love:

Sing me no deep hymn of devotion

Sing me no slow sweet melody

Sing it to one, one of the broken

And brother you're singing, singing to me

I never wanted to be the object of anyone’s pity, but I can’t deny that I am one of the broken. Countless times over the last 3-1/2 years I have heard words to the effect: “My thoughts and prayers are with you.” I often sense in these kind sentiments a note of regret. I understand. These good people want to do more - and would if they could. But a tragedy like ours forces us to acknowledge that that we are powerless to fix some situations, some things are irreparable. There is no bringing Rachel back.

I collect quotes. My first room-mate in college had a deck of notecards on which he had written positive statements. He would review them religiously, sitting on the edge of his bed or at his desk. To be honest, at the time I judged him to be a little out of step with the rest of the world. I found a new room-mate as quickly as I could. I remember him now as a harmless, decent person. I wish I had been more like him.

Anyway, one of the quotes I came across lately is from Padre Pio. He said, “Love is the first ingredient in the relief of suffering.” My mother used to kiss my boo-boo’s when I was a little boy. Her kisses didn’t stop the bleeding or the heal the wounds, but somehow they made me feel better. Now I know why.

I have said before that Jill and I prayed faithfully for the welfare and safety of our children. It has been a monumental struggle to come to terms with the fact that we prayed for Rachel’s safety in the morning before we knew she was already dead and her broken body was lying in a morgue awaiting an autopsy. Since then, it has been a challenge to find a good enough reason to bother to pray.

But, even before Rachel was killed, she was gone. She had moved to Irvine to pursue her dream of becoming a forensic scientist. A few years earlier, we had moved her from her home in southern California to an out of the way country town in northern California. Rachel always made it clear that she was a “So-Cal Girl At Heart,” and would return as soon as it was in her power to do so. When the time came, we had to let her go.

How does love bridge the gap of miles or years? We called her. We texted her. We emailed her. We thought of her constantly - worried for her, wondered about her. We prayed for her. Nothing we could do seemed like enough. With love, isn’t that always the way?

Another quote I found recently has helped me gain some perspective. St. Teresa of Avila said, “Prayer is an act of love.” The Bible says that prayer is a waste of breath without love. But when it springs from “the will to love,” as St. Teresa says, the message gets through.

One of the writers of the Philokalia said, “Love is greater than prayer.” I still have no confidence in the ability of prayer to secure my requests, but one thing I can affirm: my prayers for Rachel each and every day of her life were an act of love. That makes me feel a little better. I did what I could do, even when what I did looked like nothing so much as nothing at all. Maybe compassionate thoughts and heartfelt prayers and other acts of love are useless. But so are many beautiful, precious things. God knows my heart and yours, and, if what the Bible says is true, Rachel now knows perfectly well how much I have always loved her - and always will.

Prefab Sprout has another song that has spoken to me lately called, “God Watch Over You.” Obviously, it is a prayer for God’s protection. At first, it raised my hackles, cynical as I have become of the utility of such prayers. But, when I listened closely, I discovered that Paddy subtly reminds us that God can answer this prayer in different ways. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We are never out of his care:

I pray that god protects you...

God watch over you

every minute, every moment

God watch over you

every minute, every moment

God watch over you (and if you fall)

May he stretch out his arm and catch you,

keep you from harm, or sweep you

into his palm...but...

God watch over you

God watch over you

Love is never wasted. The Bible says, “Love Never Fails.” I can’t stop thinking of Rachel because I still love her. I still pray that God is watching over her - it’s all I can do.

There is a door it may seem locked

But in a little while, don't be shocked

Above the noise, behind the glare

I know you're listening out there somewhere, somewhere

I can't wait to meet you there, somewhere

I can't wait to meet you there

“Doo-Wop In Harlem” by Prefab Sprout

Reading the Signs

The longest night of the year, December 21, 2010, there is a rare, full lunar eclipse, though we cannot see it because it is hidden behind the clouds.

The last lunar eclipse I am aware of occurred on February 21, 2008, the night our daughter was killed. I worked late that night, mounting a customer’s flat screen television and hooking up her surround sound system. The woman told me that her son was fighting in Iraq. She said she only kept herself from worrying to death by not thinking about his safety. I was silently grateful that my daughter was away at college and not at war.

When I got out of my truck at home, I paused to view the eclipse with no sense of ill omen or impending doom. I’m not superstitious. I went into the house and greeted my wife, Jill, as if our lives would go on in the same blessed way forever. Later, the clouds moved in, and, while we slept, it began to rain. Our daughter was dead before we woke, though we didn’t know it. I have often tormented myself with the thought that I missed something, that I failed to apprehend some obvious message that, had I really been paying attention, could have prevented disaster.

I don’t know what it means that this year’s lunar eclipse occurs on the winter solstice. Now it seems a particularly portentous event. To add to my anxiety, this morning’s devotional reading is from June 23^rd, our daughter’s birthday. It recounts Jesus’ parable of the reluctant wedding guests. Eugene Peterson, the author of the devotional book, says, “We are faced with a life and death summons. The responses we make to God in Christ are the stuff of eternity.”

It is raining again. It is raining, and I am listening. Surely there is some decipherable message here, if I can only find the key to unlock its meaning, if I only I had the ears to hear. I am paying attention, now. I observe the signs. Someone is trying to tell me something. Still, nothing makes any sense...

PUTTING HER AHEAD OF US

Many people wonder at our courage and strength. I understand that they simply don’t understand. I know, because I used to feel the same way: How could anyone survive the death of a child? It is inconceivable. And, the fact is, we really don’t want to conceive of it. We don’t want to entertain the idea that it could happen to us. The fact that God only chooses certain people for such a trial is a sure sign of their extraordinary character...Isn’t it?

That’s not the way it works. I can’t conceive of any more loss than what I have already suffered: best friend, grandparents, sister, daughter...I know, however, if I don’t die first, other losses will mark my pilgrimage through this valley in the shadow of death. Loss is one of the naked facts we must learn to reckon with and, finally, accept. We are all losers. Jesus tried to teach us: we only gain life by losing it, letting go. We only keep the treasure we give away. It all slips through our fingers eventually; why not let it go, give it up, give it away? We spend so much of our lives trying to cling to what we cannot hold. Our time would be better spent in other more worthwhile pursuits: loving, for one.

This is what I have learned: We endure what we must. I don’t know how the starving AIDS orphans endure their plight. They do it because they must. I have survived the loss of Rachel so far not because I am strong or courageous or virtuous or special, but, simply, because I have no other real option. And that is the way we learn all the hard lessons of life - Not because we choose, but because, at last, we must reconcile ourselves to the given facts of our lives. So much for victorious living. It is much more like surrender, more like defeat. I would not have chosen this path; it is not what I had planned for my life, or my daughter’s. A daughter should steward the memory of her parents, not the other way around. Everything is out of order now…

But look at Christ...His dark agony, his apparent defeat in death on the cross, turned out to be the victory he sought and on which all our hopes depend. He overcame by submitting to his defeat, by suffering and dying. It doesn’t make any sense, but it does give us hope.

In the end, God’s promises are our only hope. A desperate, drowning person will grasp at anything, I know. But on my best days, I truly believe. Some would counsel us simply to put this whole horrendous mess behind us; forget about it and move on. We can’t do that. We live in the present, and Rachel’s life and death has changed the whole landscape of our present lives. Even if we could, we wouldn’t want to. Rachel, our hearts insist, is more than a memory. The only thing that keeps us moving forward instead of dwelling in the past now, is the awareness that it is only in the future that all our hope is realized. We will never find Rachel in the past. We can’t put her behind us. We must put her ahead of us. That is what keeps us going. She cannot come to us, but we shall go to her.

90 Seconds In Hell

Shortly after Rachel was killed we had an encounter with a book called 90 Minutes In Heaven by Don Piper. He was pronounced dead at the scene of a traffic collision and visited heaven before he was restored to his body in this world.We were given the book by some friends who had lost their son about 10 years ago now. Just after we read the book, we heard that the author was scheduled to give a presentation in Chico on Easter Sunday. It seemed like a divine appointment, so Jill and I went with Erik and Rachel’s boyfriend Jeff. Easter was a hard day, coming as it did so soon after Rachel’s passing, but the talk was hopeful. There were many things I brought home that night that have helped me through this difficult, but hearing of the miraculous work of God in Don’s life that enabled him to be there that night made us all wonder why there was no miracle for Rachel, or for us...But I know that Don would say life in God’s presence is not second best.

Anyway, the other day I had a small breakthrough, and I have been feeling better the last few days. I had written my friend Ray about it, and sent him a quote I had read in The Sun Magazine about living with the awareness that everything and everyone is “already broken.” The writers, Stephen & Ondrea Levine (from Who Dies?) relates the story of a spiritual teacher taking the breaking of a drinking glass in stride. His reaction to the breaking of the glass is “Of course!” It is inevitable that a glass will eventually break, and so we should not be surprised or distressed when it happens. We should use that awareness to heighten our appreciation of the glass. Similarly, we all know humans are not built to last. We and our love ones will pass from this life, and the wise thing to do is come to grips with this fact and live our lives accordingly.

“If we lived our lives as though we were already dead, how much time would there be for self protection and the re-creation of ancient mirages? Only love would be appropriate, only truth.”

They are beautiful words. I acknowledged the truth of them, and I was immediately tested.

I wake Erik up every morning at 6:00 to get ready for school. I generally tap lightly on his door, and he wakes right up - he is a pretty light sleeper and a relatively early riser (for a teen-ager). Monday morning he didn’t respond when I knocked on his door. I knocked again. I knocked again, louder. When there was still no response I opened the door and called his name. I turned the light on dimly and called again. I turned the light on full brightness and yelled his name. I could see his form motionless under his blanket. I was trying to see if there was any movement at all. I couldn’t tell. I started to get light-headed and weak. I couldn’t believe this was happening. How could a perfectly healthy young man wake up dead? How was I going to tell Jill? I stared into the abyss. I was right on the edge. I was afraid to touch him. If he didn’t respond, then I would really have to face the fact that he was dead. I shook him and called his name. He woke up with a smile on his face. He had no idea I was standing at the gates of hell.

To see him respond was such a relief I almost fell to the floor. My heart hurt and I felt weak all day.

Some parents do wake up and find their children have passed in the night. But it isn’t normally the first possibility that enters your mind when your teenager fails to wake up at first knock in the morning on a school day. But that is where our heads are at now. Our confidence in the predictability and safety of the routine is gone. Children can walk out the door and never come back; children can go to sleep and not wake in this world. The worst thing can happen, and it can happen again and again. There is no immunity. There is no security. The horrors that pass through your mind cannot not be ignored: they are real possibilities. 

All I can tell you is that the breaking of a glass is not the same as the breaking of a child. Yes, they are both impermanent things in this world as it is. But a human being is many orders of magnitude more precious, and I cannot imagine accepting the loss with equanimity - even if I wanted to. There is wisdom in living with the constant awareness that now is all we have, that life is short and no amount of love is ever enough. But when your child is shattered by the blunt force trauma of a collision with an SUV piloted by an intoxicated driver or simply fails to wake up one morning, there is no denying or escaping the living hell that awaits you. I want to be a noble-minded philosopher, but I have a daddy’s heart.

3:30 am

Rachel was pronounced dead at 3:30 am. I know that this is an official time and that her spirit more likely left her body shortly after she was hit head-on by a drunk driver at around 12:30 am. The people on duty at the hospital told us that though her body was young and healthy and strong by the time she arrived there was really no hope of saving her life. At that point they were only trying to preserve her body so that they could harvest any salvageable organs. Rachel wanted to be an organ donor and had indicated her wish on her drivers license. Unfortunately, Rachel’s body was so badly damaged by the impact, there was nothing they could save. She was denied even that awful last wish.

It is remarkable that a person as young as Rachel would have the presence of mind to consider and record her intent to donate her organs in case of sudden death. Considering Rachel’s intention to become a forensic scientist, though, I guess it really is not too unexpected. I remember when she asked me if she could donate her organs and if I could help her register when she turned 16 and got her driver’s license. Of course I didn’t want to consider the actual possibility, and I thought at the time that to assent would really be agreeing to nothing. I could be the good guy and say “yes” and not have to live with any real change (unlike, say, agreeing to letting her get her nose pierced). She was surprised to learn that I had already filled out an organ donor card. 

I cannot find the words to express what it is like for a father to contemplate the fact of his little girl’s shattered body. I was not there when it happened. I did not see her body, and maybe that is a mercy. I would have been there if I could, even if it had killed me (and I think it would have). There was nothing I could do to save or help her. We weren’t even aware she had been killed until hours after it had happened. We were denied the horrific privilege of attending our daughter’s passing from this life as we attended her entrance.

For days after the wreck, I would lay in bed, wide awake, and listen to my heart pounding in my chest. I marveled it had the strength to make such a commotion, suffering as it was. How do you sleep after such a thing? How do you eat? How do you drink or carry on with a hundred other ordinary, insignificant tasks? Why? We tried to eat and sleep because we knew we must. We pantomimed normal life, knowing nothing would ever be normal again. We were victims of some hideous, debilitating disfigurement, but, somehow, the rest of world was oblivious to our condition.

When I did fall asleep, I would wake up promptly at 3:30 in a panic, my heart pounding against the mattress. It felt like a betrayal to sleep, knowing my daughter needed me. But I was too late; I had already missed her. I had slept through her hour of need, like Jesus’ friends in the garden. 

In desperation, I would pray. Everyone I cared for was suffering because of Rachel’s death, so there was plenty of need. I thought that if the enemy was keeping me awake to accuse me of being a crappy father who could not protect or help his daughter, I would spoil his fun by spending the time in prayer. Even if that wasn’t the case, I felt it was something I could do in the darkest hours of the night. And sometimes, the exercise would calm my heart enough that I could go back to sleep. 

11 months after the wreck, I still wake at 3:30 in the morning. I open my eyes and the digital numbers glare back at me from the clock on the night stand, an accusation. My heart doesn’t pound anymore like it did when the wounds were fresh, but there is a heaviness I can’t shake...and dreams that haunt me. I pray to save my own life and for my dearest loved ones who still suffer and have not found their footing. I pray for the truth to be revealed about exactly what happened February 21, 2008. I pray for a change in America, so that fathers like me can lay in bed in the darkest hours of the night knowing that their children are safe from harm from drunk drivers. As far as I am concerned THAT is the change we need.

Everything Happy Makes Me Sad...

   

     Today I pulled my truck over to the side of a country road and listened as Barack Obama took the oath of office and gave his inaugural address. Maybe it sounds silly, but I couldn’t hold back my tears. It was an historic moment for America, regardless of politics.

 

     At one point President Obama quoted scripture and said that “the time has come that we set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.” I believe he means what he says. I believe there is hope. I want to see America live up to the bright, but often broken, promise of her principles.

     I cried today because I was happy and that made me sad. Sad because I could not share this momentous occasion with Rachel. Sad because this would have been Rachel's first time to vote in a presidential election, and she was denied that privelege. Sad because, though I believe we can and will deliver the “great gift of freedom...to future generations” if we put our hearts and our hands to the project, it will not be for Rachel or her children. For Rachel and for her children and her children’s children that gift was forever denied by a drunk driver.

     I still love America. I still care about this world and the welfare of those who inhabit it, though my precious girl is gone from it. The whole world is rejoicing. It is a good day. I am glad I have lived to see it. But everything happy now makes me sad...

To Pray Or Not To Pray

"...theology must not try to be any clearer about God than God is about Himself." Mike Mason, The Gospel According To Job

Grief is a wicked cocktail: loss, pain, confusion.  All thoroughly mixed up. 

Would good theology make our grief any easier, I wonder? Would answers ease us into acceptance?

We keep coming back to the same old nagging questions. We admit that God did not cause Rachel to die. We acknowledge that a selfish, drunken woman killed her. But did God allow it to happen? That is the unavoidable issue of the Book of Job that we are studying in our Sunday School class. Job did not deserve to suffer, any more and probably much less than any other merely human that has ever walked this earth. His suffering was “caused” by the devil working through natural, human and spiritual agents. But it is also made clear that God allowed it. Satan had to get God’s permission in order to “test” Job with horrific loss and pain.

The night Rachel was killed, her car failed to start. It had never failed to start before. She and her friend Andre waited and tried to start her car three times before they finally succeeded, delaying Rachel’s departure for half an hour. If the car had started on the first or second attempt, she would be here with us now. If it had failed to start the third time, she would be here with us now. It is a seemingly small thing for God to accomplish: the timing of the ignition of an automobile. Of course, we did not pray that prayer specifically, but we did pray daily for Rachel’s safety. We prayed for her safety early in the morning of February 21, 2008, not knowing she was already dead.

Either God can answer prayer or He can’t. Either God does answers prayer, or He doesn’t. If He can’t or He doesn’t, why are we enjoined to pray? If He can and does then why did He choose to disregard our dearest request, the one we most cared about in this world? We are not perfect, and neither was Rachel, but none of us deserved this. If God can’t be trusted with our “big prayers,” our most heartfelt desires, why waste our breath nagging Him with the insignificant details?

I don’t have the answers. When I don’t understand, all I can do is fall back on what I do know. God did not rescue His own Son from the plans or the hands of evil men though He cried out to His Father to be delivered. We have to conclude that either God is so ineffectual that He could not even help His own beloved Son, or else He chose to allow it. Could we be callous enough to suggest He didn’t care? That would be contrary to what we know of parental instincts. We love our children. We are concerned for their welfare. We do everything in our power to keep them from coming to harm and to spare them unnecessary pain. God, if He is God, must be at least as good a parent as we are.

Of course, God has a plan. But did it have to be this way? 

Evil is a choice. Goodness is a choice. We can choose to work with God to build His kingdom or we can work against Him. God often accomplishes His purposes in spite of the choices we make. He uses the very worst intent of the most evil of His rebellious creatures to achieve His good purposes. There is some mysterious alchemy here we cannot fathom.

My daughter is killed by a wicked woman. God’s Son is killed by wicked men. I can’t imagine God scrambling behind the scenes for a contingency plan. I don’t think it works like chess with each player constantly adjusting their game in response to their opponent - God backed into a corner, wondering what move to make next, sacrificing pawns to achieve His ultimate conquest...

The questions are too big, and too confusing. My mind is stretched beyond my capacity to follow my own crooked line of reasoning. 

I must resign myself to the fact that I am not God. And I am not big enough or smart enough to judge Him.

Maybe we don’t have to understand. If we did, God would probably have made us smarter than we are, with eyes good enough to see a bigger picture.

I fall back on what I do know - what I have been taught and what I have learned through experience.

The morning Rachel was killed, Jill and I read in our One Year Bible that “God is good. His faithful love endures forever.” We choose to accept or reject that statement, and we are confronted with it again and again in the Bible - and in our own lives. I have learned it is a matter of faith. When the evidence of our experience doesn’t correspond with the truth God has revealed about Himself, we have a choice to make. Like Nicolas Cage to Diane Kruger in National Treasure, God is asking, “Do you trust Me?” 

“Faith...is the evidence of things not seen.”

I had a conversation soon after Rachel’s death with a good friend of mine, Josh Moreland. I explained to him that I had grieved the death of my best friend, Erik Kolar,  rejecting God, (not that He wasn’t there and ready to embrace me - In my anger and pain I rejected the comfort of His loving presence). And I had grieved the death of my sister, Vanessa Elliott, embracing Him. I have learned it is better to grieve with faith in God’s goodness and love than without it. It is better to trust in Him than to trust in myself. 

I don’t know why God allowed my daughter to be killed by a drunken fool. I think it may just be part of the bargain of being. My contention is that I would be offended by any possible explanation. No reason would be good enough for me to allow my daughter to be killed. I am not God...or Abraham even. I would not sacrifice my daughter to achieve any conceivable good. Myself maybe, but not her. 

I think it is better that I do not know. I let the question go. Perhaps, someday, with better eyes I will see, with a better mind I will understand. But I resign myself to the fact that I may never know. Rachel is God’s daughter; I ascribe more significance to my contribution than I deserve to take credit for her life. 

What I have learned is that presence is better than understanding. When we are in pain we need comfort, not a lecture. That is why Job’s friends were better to him in their silence than in their speech.

Job never understood what was happening to him. He was never given any answers, and the deaths of his children were never justified. Nevertheless, Job clung to God in the darkness for dear life. Of the people who speak in the book, only Job bothers to pray. He continues to pray, and his prayers are not nice, Sunday School prayers.

I believe God is good. I believe His faithful love endures forever. I believe He loves me and He loves Rachel. I don’t understand, but I will cling to Him in spite of my confusion. I pray because it reminds me of my dependence on God for everything I have and am. I pray because prayer reminds me of His loving presence. And that is a comfort.

As Job said, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  Amen.

*

I went back to bed and slept in the middle of writing this. I dreamed of an angel telling me, “learning is the head catching up with the heart. You are learning,” she said, and she smiled a beaming, beautiful and loving smile, the kind of smile that blesses your whole day. 

I know: it is only a dream...

The Tiniest Light

The holidays are behind us now. We dreaded them in advance, and they pretty much lived up to our expectations. Christmas morning I was a wreck. Jill and I got out of bed and I wandered around the house in tears, trying not to spoil anyone’s day.

Every year for the previous nine years I have purchased mint sets of the five 50 State Quarters released over the previous year for Rachel and Erik and my two nephews, Levi and Samuel. It was my tribute to my grandfather, William Travis Temple, who was an avid coin collector. We spent many happy and memorable times together searching for coins with a metal detector on the beach (mostly we found pop-tops from soda and beer cans). When the US Mint began the program I thought it would be fun for the kids to look forward to building their collection as the years went by. This year was the tenth and final release of the 50 State Quarters program. I didn’t get to give Rachel her final set. 

I purchased a set for Rachel anyway. I couldn’t not do it. We had hung Rachel’s stocking in the usual place. I put the 2008 State Quarters Mint set in her stocking, and it was the only thing in it this year (I should have put a box of Andes in there also, because that was always a non-negotiable treat in her stocking). I didn’t know what else to do. It probably sounds crazy, but it was the only way I could think to send a message of love to my daughter this Christmas. 

Well, that set me off, and I struggled all morning to keep my composure. Of course, I couldn’t hide it from Jill. As much as I hate to admit it, she reads me like a book. We held each other in our bedroom, standing beside our dresser, crying. Ida, our family dog, is very sensitive to our emotions. She came and sat our feet, obviously in distress. Just when we thought we weren’t going to make it through the day, Ida farted. The noise surprised even her, and she turned around to see where it had come from. Our tears turned to laughter, our moods were lightened, and, I think, the day was rescued from the brink of complete disaster. God works in mysterious ways.

From “Concerning The Book Which Is The Body Of The Beloved”

by Gregory Orr

If deepest grief is hell

When the animal self

Wants to lie down

In the dark and die also...

If deepest grief is hell,

Then the world returning

(Not soon, not easily)

Must be heaven.

The joke you laughed at

Must be heaven.

Or the funny thing

The cat did

At its food dish.

Whatever

Guides you back

To the world.

That dark so deep

The tiniest light

Will do.