Death is a collision; the most violent, invasive, brutal impact the heart can ever encounter.
It’s a savage, jarring, soul-wallop, that doesn’t just injure you, it alters you; permanently.
Anyone who has lost someone they love, can tell you that the person’s death becomes a hinge point; a fixed, permanent landmark dividing their life into two distinct sections; before and after.
While I’ve spent the past 11 months in the dizzying, heart-wrenching, ground-shaking after, following my father’s sudden passing, my mind frequently drifts back to before; to seconds before.
Lately, I often have a sort of out-of-body experience, where I see myself, just moments before the phone call; just before all hell broke loose, right before the crash.
I see my face; a face that still hadn’t worn the tell-tale grooves and the massive weight of deep sadness that would become so familiar.
I feel for him.
I know he’s oblivious to what’s coming.
I want to warn that guy; to prepare him; to scream at him to brace himself.
It was a gorgeous September Saturday morning, filled with the usual blend of loud cartoons, spastic kids pinballing off the furniture, and the humming white noise of the vacuum cleaner. The sky was clear and blue, and the sun was streaming through the windows. I’d finished-up some message prep for the next morning, and I was running downstairs to head to the gym. I remember quickly bounding down the stairs, as the phone on the table rang.
Nothing about that day hinted at the horror that was headed my way.
Nothing in my spirit sensed the devastation around the corner.
Nothing in the ringing of that phone, forecasted the collision coming.
And then, just like that… impact.
There’s no word for the moments that follow this kind of barbaric invasion, other than, trauma.
It’s the frantic swirl of shock, and questions, and disbelief that sends you spinning out of control;
Feeling your knees hit the ground as for the first time, you speak of someone you love as past, not present;
Seeing the startled face of your 8-year old, and in an instant trying to find the softest way to give him news that will shatter him;
Thinking about phone calls two days before, moments from twenty years ago, and funerals yet to be planned, simultaneously;
Hearing a voice inside your head say the stupefying words, “I don’t have a dad”.
I think of myself in those pre-collision moments; about the man I was then, about the things I was worried about, the plans I had, the stuff that occupied my mind, and while I so envy him in his innocence and his oblivion; that me before the crash, I know that I’m better than him at living.
I know things that he doesn’t know.
I feel things more deeply than he ever did.
I see people from a place that he never could.
I cherish moments far better than he was able to.
I savor things in a way that he never cared to.
So even though I completely hate passing through the Grief Valley; as horrible, and painful, and scarring as it’s been, I know there’s been blessing in the bleeding.
As debilitating and damaging as this crash has been to my heart, I’m still here; wounded, but walking.
For those of you who have survived the terrible impact of Death in your life; be encouraged.
For those of you who haven’t yet felt that kind of collision; love people well, treasure the seconds as best you can, and brace yourselves.
