Real Life and Divine Certainty in the Chaos of Loss

Four years ago this hour, this night, I was spent. Just plain gone. I felt an exhaustion I’d never felt, a weight that was pulling me apart emotionally. My dad was gone. He had died in the early hours of the morning. My head, by now, was on a pillow, my son snoozing at my side.

After a near-sleepless night the night before I roused just after dawn to quiet, steady rain and deeply dreary skies. A wave of panic swept over me: I hopped out of the bed and ran upstairs to secure my mom’s cordless phone before it rang and whisk it outside. Two seconds after I grabbed it, sure enough: It rang.

I talked to my parent’s minister on the phone, sitting on the back porch as the rains fell. No thunder. No wind. No song birds singing. Just rain.

As if the skies wept with me.

I clinched the phone waiting for the next call, knowing my sleeping mother was far more grieved than I having lost her husband and that my precious wife and kids were still asleep after a long trip from Tennessee the day before. The rains just fell without apology. The sun still veiled behind the clouds gave a little more light to a seeming hesitant day. Family began to stir and soon we were trying to make sense of the day.

For me it was spent with mom, sister and oldest brother going to the funeral home. Then we had to choose a cemetery. Mom and dad planned to do all this well before this day but… well, that’s OK. We were together and figured it out with the help of good people along the way.

The rains and clouds sauntered off and the sun was gracious enough to keep company with us as we visited two memorial gardens, taking our time and finally settling on one. There was a lot of walking. A lot of thought. A lot of intent in choosing the right place. And thankfully, it was clear when we did.

That night I was in my childhood home with family, without dad. I stepped outside into the dark and walked around the yard. Like a little boy needing to be defended from some punk kid down the street or lost in a department store, I just felt the words well up inside… “I want my daddy! I just want my dad!”

Dad was 79, lived a fine life (and most would agree), and was a sweet dad and a good man – good to a fault, his little sister would say. 79 years wasn’t enough for me then. But thank God I was able to have him through my life.

That night, after confronting the first wave of fatigue and dissonance of loss and chaos (with several more to come in the following days), my Father calmed my heart and reminded me that He has my daddy, that he is at rest, and that I will see him again.

And like a little kid bent on instant gratification and a view of things narrowed by hurt and frustration, I didn’t want to hear that – it wasn’t good enough. Not in that moment. But it didn’t matter. I went to sleep, and God kept watch over me yet again. Good fathers do that.

Now, 48 months on, my Father keeps nudging me along – not away from that experience but deeper into real life – one that looks beyond the shallowness of death itself for the promise, a divine certainty. One that is backed up by an empty tomb just outside Jerusalem.

Today was beautiful.
And the sun wept with me a little this time, this afternoon as I sat in shade, watching my boy play with friends at the neighborhood pool.

This evening was lovely, too; clear and cool and bright with stars as our family of four visited on the back porch in twilight…

When I’m spent, my Father refills me.
When I’m gone, my Father returns me.
When I’m exhausted, my Father restores me.

And when I’m down, my Father reminds me… of His promise. His divine certainty. His son’s empty tomb.

And eventually, my own empty grave.
And my dad’s.

https://www.bible.com/bible/105/2TI.1.8-10.ncv
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Photo taken of the Antioch Church of Christ building, June 21, 2017, at sunset.