Life

Hello my dear friend,

So much has happened to me that I do NOT know where to begin, and don't care too.   All I want to say is PLEASE keep me in your prayers.  I hope and pray You and your 4 boys are well.  Tell all BIG hello for me. 

MUCH LOVE ALWAYS!!!!

This popped into my inbox on November 10, 2012.  On November 12, I responded back, with a simple offer of a listening ear, if one was ever needed.  On November 13th, my friend was home in Heaven, unbeknownst to me.

It wasn't an auto accident or a suicide attempt or the MS that had ravaged her body that caused her death.  It was a tiny pimple on the inside of her leg, filled with poison that traveled into her blood after she innocently burst the nodule, looking for relief from the pain.

James (4:14) says "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes."  I reflected on my sketchy recollection of this verse as I walked a beach on the Gulf of Mexico this weekend.  The enormity of the water, the vastness of the horizon, that stretch of sand made me feel very small.  It made me realize the little part I will play in this world during my tenure here.  It made me realize that, in just a few years, my friend's journey will be but a sketchy memory for most who knew her.

I thought of our times laughing together when we were single.  Of her excitement when Mike and I started dating, of our shared love of ribbing him.  Of our time together several years ago, when we stopped to visit with her and she entered the room looking as beautiful as she always had been, with a smile as wide as the beach I stood on, pushing the necessary walker as she came across the room.  I fought back tears in that moment, tears for all she had lost.  I fought back tears for being so weak in my faith, while she was so incredibly, unfathomably strong.

My friend knew in those last days that she was going home.  She was at peace.  She told her Mother that she and God had a deal that He would come get her before she had to permanently be in a wheelchair.  The night He delivered her, she was precariously close to that point.  But, He was faithful.
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The holidays of 2012 were a blur of unfinished projects and bags that needed packing.  My usual Christmas cards, for the first time in many years, were never sent.  The pictures of the Nowell five, all 100 of them, never left their developing envelope.  The Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus stamps lay unused.  There was no "undeliverable to address" stamp on a returned envelope to signal that something was amiss.

And then, in a blink, it was January.  A new year.  A fresh start.  A short list of birthdays to acknowledge but a long list of to-dos to complete.  I fired off an email, sending my best wishes and hopes for a great year, with prayers and hugs and kisses, too.  I didn't notice, because life was a blur, that there wasn't the typical "thank you for thinking of me" response.

And a couple of months later, the phone rang in the middle of the day.  It was Joyce, my friend's Mother.  My birthday wishes had been opened, once passwords had been pried from the mail provider's lists.  And Joyce realized I.didn't.know.  She was sorry she hadn't called earlier, but she just couldn't.

There we were, the Mother Joyce having lost her daughter, talking to the daughter who had recently lost her Mother Joyce;  irony from the start.  It was a beautiful end to a beautiful life, she said.  We had been faithful friends through the years.  She loved the pictures and little gifts I would send.  She was blessed to have known us.  She would send a package with funeral information, now almost six months old.  We cried and tried to talk through our tears.  There was little left to say.  It was done. 
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I want to heed the Psalmist's plea "Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom."  I want to be wise to the things that matter most in this life.  I want to strip my life of the unnecessary and fleeting and worthless.  I want to live a life that pleases God so much that I can feel it.

Today I wrote a very long overdue letter;  a letter of apology, asking for forgiveness.  I intend to print it out and read it to its recipient.  It will take me three times longer to read it than it would if I just handed it over, but it is important that my brokenness be seen.  It is important that I choke up over my past actions.  It is imperative that I do this right.

You see, I've come to understand the brevity of life.  I've come to see that I am a vapor.  I only live and move and breathe because of a great God who knows not only the number of hairs on my head, but also the number of my days.  And, because I am not privy to that information, I have to live today as though it is the last. So, I won't tarry in delivering this note and tearfully exchanging its meaning with the one who deserves it.

My friend's life taught me so many things about searching for beauty in tragedy and finding God in the little things and keeping the faith through adversity.  

But, maybe most importantly, her life taught me this sense of urgency.  This desire to go and heal, even when I'm fearful and worried and hesitant.  

Thank you, Robin.  You are missed.