Tag Archives: death

Roller Coaster Ride

IMG_0232Most of us have experienced sorrow  in our lifetime. I certainly have. A child born with a disability. An illness that stoled my ability to do certain things. My grandmother and my parents when they died. A brother who has struggled with mental illness most of his life. Dreams that haven’t come true. Loss of friendship. Circumstances that took me down paths I never planned on.

This current grief has taken me to an entirely new level, like nothing I’ve ever faced before. It is complicated. And messy. And confusing. It takes my breath away. Makes my heart feel like a rock inside my chest and haunts me with thoughts of packing a bag and fleeing to outrun it. It wakes me up in the night, fills me with dread, fear and tidal waves of sobbing I never knew were humanely possible.

I never would have suspected anger to be part of grief. This emotion has surprised me the most. It sneaks up on me at the most inopportune moments and is triggered by ridiculous things. Like struggling to open a jar that I would normally hand to Mike and when the lid won’t budge I’m overwhelmed by a sudden urge to throw it across the room.

I don’t know how many times in the past few weeks, I’ve said out loud to my missing man, “So where are you when I need you? Sure, you’re prancing around on streets of gold having the time of your life and I’m stuck down here with all this mess! Thanks a lot for leaving me!”

I’ve found myself angry for having to do all the things he usually did. Taking the trash to the roadside on Tuesday nights. Dealing with the hurricane roof that needs to be replaced. The endless amounts of paperwork and phone calls and cleaning the pool.

Most people hate pool maintenance but Mike liked it. Maybe because It’s mindless work. He used his brain so much overseeing the finances of entire organizations and managing people that cleaning tranquil water had a relaxing effect on him. Almost every night after work, he’d come home, change his clothes and go scoop out the pool. In the hot summer months he’d clean it while he was in it.

The disadvantage of having a garden inside your pool screen is the leaf debris that ends up in the pool. Last week after a windy rain, I went to scoop leaves and floating flowers out of the water. The scoop pole is long and awkward, I kept smacking the screen frame and kitchen windows with it and it took me longer than I expected. Debris I just picked up would escape the net and I was getting frustrated. Mike always made it look so easy.

I finally finished, slammed the pole back onto the hooks where it hangs and yelled up at the sky, “There! I cleaned the stupid pool! I did YOUR job and it looks nice! Aren’t you proud of me?!” Then I went back in the house and slammed the door. One minute later I was sobbing.

It’s so confusing, this grief. While I’ve considered myself to a pretty stable person, the roller coaster I’m on right now surprises me with twists and turns I don’t see coming until I’m in them. I don’t like roller coasters. They fill me with fear and make me sick. I avoid them. But it seems I’ll have to ride this one out for a while.

I do know God is in the seat next to me and He’s not surprised by any of it. He know’s I’m flesh. I’m week, flawed and tired and  He doesn’t add guilt or condemnation on top of anything I feel right now. And I’ve lived long enough to know feelings are only reactions to stuff we don’t want, like or understand. They are the like mist rising off my pool on a cool Florida morning. Ascending, dissipating and rising again while the water remains, solid and steadfast underneath.

I miss my Mike with everything in me and my tipsy, flimsy faith, reaches for the Solid One who undergirds me in all of life. God has been and always will be the constant who provides an anchor point where my faith and reality collide. This roller coaster will come to a stop and eventually I’ll get off and say, “Whew, what a horrible ride. But I made it.”

Looking forward to that. A lot. I’m honestly admitting I don’t like where I am right now but when “I walk through valleys as dark as death…the Lord is with me” (Psalm 23:4). He’s with me in the anger, the sorrow, the sobbing, the confusion and even brief moments of joy. He’s bigger than my emotions and greater than my circumstance.

He is my God. He weeps with me, loves me and isn’t freaked out by anything I feel or how I react to this new normal I’m adjusting too. I trust Him to carry me through this process and bring me out on the other side because “[my] Maker is [my] husband: the Lord Almighty is His name. He is [my] redeemer. He is called the God of all the earth” Isaiah 54:5.

Fighting The Good Fight

IMG_0858David and I brought Mike home in a 3X6 box yesterday. For now he is resting on the top shelf of the closet we shared covered in that silly Panama Jack hat he liked in Seaworld’s gift shop. Forty two years of a life together and when it’s done you’re handed a box. Talk about putting things in perspective!

My son and I sat in the car and cried together, feeling as if we’re living the book of Ecclesiastes right now. The things of Earth have become extremely dim and eternity seems very near.  Nothing here matters In this moment; not our homes, our cars, food, money, the long, long, long to do list, or even David’s soon to be published book. I admit, I’m saddened the death of his father has stolen David’s excitement for his accomplishment.

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” Ecclesiastes 1:1.

Heaven is near and reminding us of what really matters. Obviously we must continue living and find provision for our journey here, but all of that is far less important than knowing the Father Heart of God and loving people.

Whatever time remains for us, we will continue honoring Mike’s legacy by doing just that, until it is our turn to proclaim:

“ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing,” 2 Timothy 4:7-8.

Welcome home, Michael Connis!

What REALLY Matters

IMG_0572Mike’s first job was a newspaper route, trudging through snow, dodging rain, walking the streets where he and I lived as neighbors in upstate New York, As a kid, I remember seeing him walk past our house with a loaded newspaper sack over his shoulder, each paper removed quickly from the bag, efficiently folded into a tight missile and hurled from the sidewalk into doorways and onto front steps. He saved the money he made and bought a motorcycle, his first ride, when he was finally old enough to drive.

He never stopped working after that. When we were first married money was tight, as it is for most couples starting out. Mike took a second job delivering newspapers but now had me to assist. We’d get up at 3 AM every morning. Yawning and blurry eyed, I asked him “Why so early?” He replied, “I guess people like to read the paper with breakfast.”

He taught me how to fold a newspaper into a threefold locked and loaded missile and he’d fire them from the open window of our 1967 Chevy Impala into doorways and and onto front steps. He rarely missed.

Every employer Mike worked for through the years, moved him quickly into a management position. They saw the same diligence in him I did. My husband was always a hard worker and wise money manager. I never had to worry there wouldn’t be a roof over head, food on the table, a car to drive, clothes to wear.

If there was such a thing as a Proverbs 31 man, he fit the description perfectly. He was a Superman provider. He took care of everyone he loved, mostly at his own neglect.

I can’t stop thinking about how he left me several weeks ago. They handed me back his wedding ring and the few items in his pockets and took him away with nothing but the clothes on his back. Every material thing he worked for, our home furnished with craigslist.com bargain treasures, two cars in the driveway, a closet full of clothes, all of it, left behind. He took none of it with him.

There are moments in life that create a seismic shift in priorities and this is one of them. While I’m grateful for a home and the things needed to live on this planet, I’m acutely aware of what matters most.

Jesus summed it up in Luke 10:27, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.”

In the midst of all his hard work, Mike loved his Heavenly Daddy fiercely and he cared deeply for people. His most recent sermon, preached several months ago, was titled, ‘People Matter,’ and many are now calling, writing or stopping to tell me how he touched their life. Everywhere we lived and everywhere he worked, he made a positive difference.

When the last breath leaves your lungs, when all is said and done, the only thing you take with you is the spirit God placed within you and the impact of the people your life has touched. If we are meant to invest in anything between birth and death, it is these.

If you don’t have a personal relationship with God, get one. Now! He has waited since eternity to love you. He wants you with Him when you leave here. So did Mike. So do I.

And every morning when you greet a new sunrise, be intentional in positively impacting every person who enters your day. Lift a life. Love them right where they are and show them they are valued.

Because in the end this is the conclusion of the matter.

This is the ONLY thing that counts.

The Final Vow

IMG_0011The first two promises Mike and I made to one another weren’t always easy to keep. We laughed, cried, fought, rejoiced, struggled, walked together and at times, far apart through “for better, for worse. In sickness and in health.”

Many years ago we stood at an altar and repeated, “Until death do us part.” I was a young, starry eyed, romantic, full of warm, fuzzy dreams of how my life would play out with the guy I loved. Those five words, stated so innocently, so glibly have now come full circle.

“Until death do us part.”

Forty two years later I’m experiencing the final vow. This one I get to keep without Mike by my side. That’s how it usually works. After decades of sloshing through the history of our life, one of us got to go. One got to stay.

“Until death do us part.”

My covenant promises to Michael Connis ended abruptly a few weeks ago. The last vow has been fulfilled. The stark, harsh reality of it has left me reeling, gasping, longing.

But the living of it in between the “I Do” and this parting, I will never regret.

The combining of two bodies, souls and spirits is a most wonderful, difficult thing. If you’re still privileged to be living between the first two vows and the last one – BE. ALL. IN.

Love ferociously. Struggle determinedly. Give it all ya’ got until the final vow comes calling.

In the deep grief of a broken heart and the loneliness of long, sleepless nights there will be a spark of joy in realizing you kept the promises.

And it was worth it!

Matthew 19:6 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Saying Goodbye

We said goodbye to our dear friend, Harold, recently. He left this earth to take up residence in his eternal home.

It’s hard to say goodbye.tree

In my saddened state, I’ve been thinking about death, as we are prone to do when someone we love passes from this earth.

Why is it so hard for us? Why does it rattle us to our very core? We all know death comes. Not one of us escape it.

Yes, I understand the separation and loss, the vast empty place the removal of someone who was so much a part of us creates. But it seems our struggle with death is even deeper than those things.

And it is. Because death was never in God’s original plan for us.  He originally created man to live forever in a perfect body on a perfect earth. In the deep places of our being, we know we were never meant to taste death or experience it.

God told the first man and woman, “Don’t eat of that tree, if you do you will die.” He offered choice. And they chose to listen to the lie. They ate and the journey of life to death on this earth began (Read Genesis 2:15-3:24).

I used to wonder why I should suffer for what the first man and woman did. That was their choice not mine. It’s like the school teacher punishing the entire class for the behavior of one child.

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.” Romans 5:12

God hardly seemed fair in dolling out sin curses for generations to come when I never had a chance to decide whether I would take a bite from that fruit or not. If I was in The Garden I would have chosen to do the right thing.

But would I? Would any of us? Do we now?

How many times have I chosen my will over God’s, exalting my selfish desires over His, justifying what looks good to me over His perfect best? I wish I could say never, but the truthful answer is, I’ve lost count.

So God knew man would choose death. He knew it when he created us but did it anyway just as we take the risk of having a child with no guarantee of the outcome. It’s done from of a heart of love. We sacrifice for that child to have every advantage, every good choice and our heart breaks if they choose a path leading to their downfall, hurt or destruction.

But thank God, we are not left stranded, without hope, “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 5:19 & 21).

God came to our planet, took on a flesh suit and became like us to provide a way back to immortality and perfection. He became one of us to rescue us from eternal death. He made a way of escape from the ravages of sin and death through the sacrifice of His son, Jesus, who was nailed to a tree. For you. For me.

Death started and ended with a tree.

The choice returns, but the subtle injection of doubt continues through time. “Did God really say?” (Genesis 3:1). Do we believe in Jesus or do we continue to believe the lie, the illusion, the trick that we can be our own god, that we can still eat the fruit of a life apart from Him and suffer no consequences?

We all die physically and leave this planet, but believing the truth of who Christ is and what He did for us, assures us that is not the end, only a transition to a new life; the beautiful and glorious life we were always meant to have.

We’ve had to say goodbye to our friend for now, but hope comes in knowing I will see him again when it’s my turn to leave here. Maybe instead of goodbye, I should just say,

“See ya’ later, Harold. Save me a seat on that bench. Underneath The Tree of Life.”bench

1 Corinthians 15:26 ” The last enemy to be abolished is death.’

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.”

 

                                                                                                        photos courtesy of picjumbo.com