~ December 4, 2021 ~
“A few days ago, on the evening of December 1, I sat down to do a final once-over of the final chapter of the final book in the trilogy. Before I could get started, I got a phone call . . .”
I’m a huge fan of Bob Ross, but not of this date. Yet I’ll always keep this memento from the daily calendar that day everything changed.
I’d planned on leaving this out, focusing on the writing journey. Circle back years down the road, perhaps. I meant to move on in the journal at least half a year past this. As I contemplated this blog entry earlier this week, it became clear that was wrong. Sure, it’s what I wanted, to gloss over this, not face it, not get too personal, stick to the script.
The last post ended with the journal entry right before this one. My plan to skip ahead was in place for months. Then, three different families with connections to mine suffered loss over the past week. Senseless tragedy.
My heart goes out to them all. Their pain has given me pause, made me look back and feel the Shepherd’s nudge. It’s time to share what I’m not ready to.
Before I started on that final once-over, I got a phone call. There was a wreck involving several cars. Multiple fatalities. Among them, my little brother. My best friend. My coffee shop buddy. One of my biggest fans.
He was 37. He’d just moved back to the area after serving in ministry abroad for 10 years. He’d settled with his family 6 months prior, only minutes away instead of overseas. My family helped his move. I thought we had years ahead of catching up and touring coffee shops, raising our kids, holidays, and everything else. After all that time apart, to get him back, only to have him snatched away . . .
I don’t know what to say. I hate to recount it. It stretches me enough anyway, sharing in these blog posts, but this is far worse. Yet here I am, typing away, because what is the alternative? Forgetting them? Sweeping senseless tragedy and pain under the rug? Tragedies may seem senseless, but the lives of our loved ones are not. It matters, what they did and how they lived–and how we remember them and tell of them. I’m not sharing this for therapy or sympathy. God has worked wonders in me, deriving so much from his life and even his loss. He is there amid the grief, using it for His purposes. I think differently, feel differently. I will mourn him the rest of my days, yet I know there will be a reunion in the end.
As you know, dear fellow travelers, I try to share content that is common to us all. The point here isn’t woe is me. Rather, it’s that you, too, have known loss. Some of you deeply, in life changing ways. How do you cope? Since losing him, my irritation at menial things has diminished. My priorities refocused. My empathy for others has grown. I think of Tolkien growing up without a father. Lewis losing the wife he waited so long for. And so many others who knew devastating loss long before I did. I know many of you can relate. And questions arise in these crises–How could God let this happen? Is He still good? Why should I follow Him, after this?
I daren’t attempt to answer those. Your journey is your own–not alone, but unique. I pray for all souls who know such pain, having someone torn from your life too soon. May your life be enriched, your heart softened, your mind on higher things, so that just maybe, against all logic, your faith might grow and your longing for the heights of heaven increase as the things of earth lose their luster and you come to understand all that truly matters in this life is finishing well and making it to the next one.
We hang everything on our lives down here, caught up in material things, trying so hard to set our lives up just the way we want. But He told us:
“What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” ~ James 4:14
See, we are mistaken about our temporary condition.
Take heart, for regarding the life that is to come He says:
“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ~ Romans 8:38-39
I never really lost my brother; he just beat me to the finish line. His work is done, while I have much left to do, I think. Only a precious few read this now, who could be counted on one hand I daresay. But this is not only for today, but for days yet to come. Years from now, you reading this, know that I am already praying for future readers, fellow travelers. I set out to make an online analog oasis, a haven of rest and companionship. If you are raw, drowning in the grief, know that He’s there, He cares, yes for you personally. He’ll prove it if you ask.
I heard all my life how people face crisis during times of loss and question the meaning of life. Question their faith, even. Understandably so. Early on I wondered if that would be me. Amazingly, all I could think was how do people get through this without faith? Without God to carry them and give comfort, to recalibrate their hearts and open their eyes to the preciousness of life all around? To go on living in their honor, carrying them in your heart, all of it–the sorrow, the memories, the love.
Right after the one-year anniversary of his loss, I got my first rejection letter from an agent. When I saw the daily calendar that day, I wasn’t thinking about the rejection at all. Bob Ross came through, as eloquent with words as on the canvas.
Write on, live on, live for them, live a life of meaning, always remembering their life, always cherishing your own, never wasting it on the things of this world, always making it count for eternity.
Fellow Traveler