Reflections on the 3rd Anniversary
"Oh Christ, redeem this day.
I do not ask that these lingerings of grief be erased, but
that the fingers of your grace would work this memory
as a baker kneads a dough, till the leaven of
rising hope transforms it from within, into
a form holding now in that same sorrow the
surety of your presence, so that when I
look again at that loss, I see you
in the deepest gloom of it,
weeping with me,
even as I hear you whispering that
this is not the end, but only
the still grey of the dawn
before the world begins."A Liturgy for the Anniversary of a Loss, Every Moment Holy
Several days ago my mom said, "Three years feel different."
We feel lighter, more hopeful. We can imagine a happy future, even though we miss my dad.
At this point in the journey, I wonder what my life would look like if my dad was still here. If he hadn't discovered stage IV pancreatic cancer in late November 2019, and died within 5 weeks.
I wonder if I would have moved to Lynchburg, Virginia.
If I would have been connected to the people who led me to a job, a community, my church. If I would be doing CrossFit, or have a theater gig in the spring. If I would have met the person I'm now dating. If I would be making the kinds of considerations for the future I want to plan for, a future life in a little town nestled in the mountains of Central Virginia.
These are the kinds of painful and futile hypotheticals that unwillingly arise in one's mind after the death of a pivotal person in one's life, and hypotheticals to which I must respond, "I do not know."
The aspects of my life that I love, that bring me immense joy, that I now can't imagine living without — would I be where I am today if my dad was still here?
Yet I have chosen, time and again, to put my faith in a sovereign & good God. Could my God have brought me to the place I now call home with the people I now call family & friends in another way? Maybe simply COVID-19 could have taken me out of NYC to the Blue Ridge Mountains?
The problem with putting my faith in a sovereign & good God means that, yes, he could have led me to this place another way. But it happened the way it happened: through the death of my father.
And so the places and people that now make up my daily, ordinary life are now the things that I look at and about which can say two true and earnest statements: "My father's death brought me here" and "I want more than anything to share them withhim, and him with them."
These are the places of tension at which one's faith is put to the test. This is the dilemma I find myself in lately: anger and hurt that God would, in some mysterious way, allow my father to die and, at the same time, gratitude and joy that God would, in some mysterious way, use that death to eventually bring me to Lynchburg, to Rivermont Ave, to Proven Ministries, CrossFit Lynchburg, Church of the Good Shepherd, my friends, Ben Wright (my boyfriend), and more.
I am not asking for anyone's take or correction on my theology here. I am not declaring a direct causal relationship between my father's death and the good things in my life today. I am stating the facts.
I am simply trying to describe what it's like to have lost someone, and yet, for that loss to have opened doors to such joy and fullness that I did not know was possible. And asking you, if you'd like, to hold that tension of grief and joy with me. To say with me, with wonder and sadness, God has brought me thus far and he will be with me to the end.
Because I am a (lower-case) orthodox Christian, I also believe that the moment in time when my father's spirit left his body, that moment that I was present for on this day 3 years ago, that moment that he died and the very last time I would see him breathing on this earth — I believe that moment will be redeemed.
I do not claim to have all the answers. I do not know how, exactly, it will all be made right in the end. But I believe in the hope of resurrection. I ask, along with St. Paul, without resurrection, what do we have? 1 Corinthians 15.
Somehow, Jesus Christ is making all things new. Somehow the Father can orchestrate all things for not only my good, but also my father's good, my mother's good, my brother's good, and so on.
Somehow, in the end, Jesus will wipe our tears dry and death will be no more. Revelation 21.
And so I say with conviction, every Sunday, during the prayers of the people, "For those who have departed this life in certain hope of resurrection, Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer."
When I pray this prayer, I silently mouth my father's name and I look forward to feasting with him again at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Revelation 19.