We got back in town last week from my father-in-law’s funeral. It was an emotional journey for us all.
“Papa” was quite an accomplished pastor and missionary, and served as patriarch of the family. We knew he was seriously ill, but expected him to overcome the cancer like he’d done 15 years before. But then suddenly, he was gone.
Now his passing has left us all feeling disoriented at best, lost at worst.
With an autumn chill finally setting in this week, and my immediate family back at home, I set out with my wife and two little girls to spend a day at the local pumpkin patch. You’ve probably been to one before…
…a corn maze, hayride, and nice breeze just cool enough to counter the sparkling sunlight.
Even though the events of our day were unremarkable, it was one of those “forever days”– the ideal kind you wish would never end.
The kind of day that, after a time of loss, you now realize is so priceless. With my wife and kids near me, it was a day I wished I could fold in a napkin and keep in my pocket. It was a day made all the more precious by the family member we’d just lost.
Funny how you miss what’s truly valuable in life until God puts an expiration date on it. As all the transiency of our time together comes flooding over me, I hold my wife in my arms as we sit on a hay bail together. My heart aches knowing there’s an expiration date on the time she and I will have as well. But I resist the tears forming in my eyes, and breathe a prayer of thanks for the now we have left.
I’m finding myself thinking oddly since we’ve come back from the funeral. I’m starting to realize afresh how little many of my current priorities really matter. Sure, I knew that relationships with people matter most. But as my ambitions and responsibilities demand daily attention, I have a bad habit of forgetting where my treasure really is.
It’s bedtime now, and I snuggle together on the sofa with the girls in their pajamas. We watch Peppa Pig, and Ellie rests her head on my stomach.
“You’re my Daddy pillow,” she says with a grin. We all giggle together, and the day finally fades to an end.
The main difference between today and eternity is that heaven won’t have to end. Papa will be with us – no more separation and sadness.
No more unhappy endings…no endings at all. Only beginnings.
It’s almost Thanksgiving now, and about a month has passed since the funeral. We’re sitting down to supper with our extended family together for the holiday.
Of all our kids, Gracie is the youngest and least serious-minded. But she often demands to say the prayer at dinner each night.
At 4 years old, she repeats the prayer she learned in her Christian preschool: “God is great, God is good”…you know the rest. Every night, she’ll clasp her little hands together and say the entire prayer, while grinning through her squinted eyes. Occasionally, she’ll branch out into more free-form orations:
“Dear God, thank you for mommy and for daddy and for the food…and to the Republic for which it stands…Amen.”
I snorted an ounce of sweet tea out of my nose with that one.
We just finished an 8 hour car trip yesterday to get here. If Gracie was awake, she was talking. If there’s nothing to talk about, she’ll make something up. Suddenly, a bear is chasing our car, or a unicorn is singing to her, or…take your pick.
Sure it’s adorable. But toward the end of the trip my wife was coming unglued. Between fixing all the girls’ iPads and refilling their drinks, she knocked over an entire large cup of ice into her lap.
“What can I do for you, honey?”
“Just please get me home.”
Home is actually her parent’s house, and things are going to be very different this year. We’re all still processing the loss of my father-in-law. Now we’ll feel his absence even more keenly on this first holiday after his passing.
It’s also going to be tough because of the crowd of people there. All the family is coming together and staying under one roof. That’s my wife’s brother and sister, their spouses, and all of our kids and even a few animals. It’s a big house, but no house is that big.
OK, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Face it – family is tough sometimes. And the holidays can make it even tougher.
You’ve got multiple households who do things different ways, all crowded way too closely together. And now add the loss of a family patriarch, and it’s bound to get awkward, to say the least.
I think many of us approach family reunions both looking forward to them and dreading them. That’s because we can all remember times when we didn’t get along. There were trips when some of us ended up not speaking for a while. Differing ways of thinking all colliding in a small space where it’s tough to avoid each other.
When there’s so much chaos, I’m personally tempted to retreat and search for solitude. When they’re cutting the pecan pie for dessert, I’m usually headed to my bedroom and the computer. Supper is essential, pie is optional. And pie means more conversation, more chances for awkward moments. But I don’t think retreat is a good long term strategy, even though it’s a huge temptation right now.
Why? Because even the disappointing, imperfect experiences with family are better than no experiences at all.
Frankly, there were times I didn’t see eye-to-eye with my father-in-law. There were several occasions where we disagreed strongly. But right now, I’d give anything for even a disagreement with him. He’s gone, and there’s a hundred conversations I wish we could still have.
But…times up. The expiration date has passed.
He was a pastor, so every time something good or bad happens at my church, he’s the one I want to tell. I want to get his take on it, especially since he’s heard it all before. He’d help me not overreact too much to the bad, and not trust too much of the good.
But now, that sounding board is gone. Now I’ve got to figure it out on my own.
And I wish he could see how my little Gracie is profoundly affected by his passing. I wish he knew how many questions she keeps asking about Papa, and how he went to heaven. It’s been a month now, and she still hasn’t stopped talking about Papa in heaven, and how she wants to go see him there, and wondering if he’ll come back and see us soon.
I wish he could have seen her at the end of his funeral. Her older sister Ellie ran to me to tattle on Gracie. Seems she’d ventured up to the church’s balcony. In the midst of well-wishers and old friends, I hurried up the steps to try and find her.
When I got up to the balcony, there she was running up and down aisle after aisle between the pews. Finally, I cut off her escape route and grabbed her, but here little legs kept kicking. I asked her what she was doing way up in there.
“I came up here where it’s higher, so I could get to heaven and see Papa. Where’s Papa, Daddy?”
If the funeral hadn’t made me cry, that did it. I miss Papa too, so very much.
This Thanksgiving, I’d be happy to have a few of the bad moments back. Papa was quite opinionated – not always correct, but never in doubt. But he was a great man and changed thousands of lives. It would be worth the drama just to be with him again.
Even one of our worst days can become a “forever day”. One day you may look back at the chaos of today and be willing to do anything to relive it. It’s up to you whether you soak in this precious time with loved ones, or throw it away to never see it again.
So…step out of your bedroom, or bathroom, or whatever quiet corner where you’re hiding. Go out into that beautiful chaos we call family. And remember, everything’s better after a slice of pecan pie.
Go ahead. Have another piece of pie, and live fully in this moment before your expiration date is up.
