One Year Ago My Mom Died (Or, This Blurry Year Has Been A Lesson In The Life of My Heart)
February 7th. This date meant nothing to me, now it creates tears. One year ago my mom died. Or, to put it another way: 365 blurry days ago I lost my mommy—the person on the planet I've never not known. I came from her. She taught me to pray and tie my shoes and talk to girls. She bandaged my wounds. Next to my wife, she understood me better than anyone else.
My mom relentlessly fought and prayed for me. She called me on my crap, and she was aware of her mess and regularly said sorry to me (one of the most powerful ways a parent can parent). She created a relationship with me where I could talk to her about anything. She charged life with fun and laughs and songs, even though her home life was the opposite—she transformed her suffering into something beautiful.
From boyhood my mom gave me a huge vision for God, marriage, fatherhood, and friendship. She made me who I am today. I know what grace means, what it feels like even, because my mom embodied this foreign wonder.
How do you lose someone like this? How does a boy lose his mom? I don't know. This year has been a blur. As I was touching and saying goodbye to my mom's dead body (a sight you're never prepared for), a man in a uniform driving a long car came to take it. That day was filled with disorienting details—a casket to choose, an obituary to write, a funeral to plan, papers to fill out, tears to shed with my dad and brother, and trying to process the news with my three young sons.
Two days after her death I was back at Garden City, preaching a sermon titled after her famous last words to me, “See you in heaven.” A week later we held the funeral. Then I jumped back into life, leadership, fresh challenges, and hard things I can't write about while feeling the ever-present absence of a voice, presence, person who was no longer there.
The older you get the more life beats you up. This presents a challenge. I think the great challenge in life is to keep your heart alive in the midst of loss and pain. The more we experience loss or the possibility of loss, we face the quite logical temptation to protect our hearts from further pain. And so we quit our vulnerability, quit our risks, quit our dreams, and quit loving with abandon. Follow that path and you'll be "safe," assured that nobody and nothing can get too close to you and hurt you, but you'll also be less than alive—never chasing the dreams, loving the people, and feeling the joy and the loss and the adventure of a life well lived.
What I'm trying to communicate is that this blurry year has been a lesson in the life of my heart. How am I doing a year after losing my mom and in the thick of other sadnesses that have accompanied this story? I don't know. On the one hand, I think I'm "healthy." On the other hand, my heart feels messy—I've felt disoriented at times, and I don't know if I can handle getting the wind knocked out of me one more time this year. I've felt the limits of my own strength and wisdom this year more than ever before.
But, actually, I classify all of this under the banner of "healthy." What is spiritual and emotional health? To face reality. To feel reality. To be desperate and cry out to God and friends for help, comfort, wisdom. To be poor in spirit. To be alive—to refuse to deaden your heart and instead keep dreaming, risking, loving, feeling, befriending, and giving while simultaneously mourning our losses.
Isn't this the Psalms? A book that teaches us how to live. A book that teaches us the secret of life to the fullest: to both daily desire and grieve before the face of God. A healthy heart is not a safe heart. A healthy heart is an emotive explosion of longing/desire/joy and loss/grief/sadness.
It seems we have three options:
Option 1, The Superficial Optimist: The person who expects a great life of smooth sailing and hasn't yet been colored by bruises in a fallen world.
Option 2, The Heart-Deadened Pessimist: The person who has felt the scars of life and sealed off their heart to protect themselves from bad news and loss.
Option 3, The Death & Resurrection Optimist: The person whose faith is anchored in the 2,000 year-old bloody cross and empty tomb in Jerusalem—understanding that death and loss are real, but don't have the last word. The Death & Resurrection Optimist has experienced his/her own death and resurrection through personal suffering, a personal encounter with Jesus and his resurrection power, and through the daily choice to advance their role in this story about a vulnerable God who faces and feels reality in order to redeem a happy ending.
Only option 3 requires courage. February 7th. One year after a great loss I think my Father in heaven has me right where he wants me.