Morning November 2nd, 2014 A quiet day yesterday, much too quiet at times. Sometimes what is best for me may not be what I want. I used this Saturday to think a lot and also to just relax. Shirley worked on emptying out a number of storage bins and she had a tough day with that. We had saved so much of Kendras life from her childhood. I think Shirley and Kendra would have gone through the bins to sort out things that each of them might have wanted and gotten rid of the rest. But it is a job that Shirley had to do alone. It is not something I would have done with the kind of sensitivity she exhibited yesterday. The external reminders of our life with Kendra are very visible at times. In some ways they are reminders of a blessed time in our lives. They evoke memories that have been dormant for decades. In other ways they also remind us that we can’t bring back anything other than the memories, a shell of the existence we all had with each other. When I see a card Sister made for me or Shirley when she was an elementary school student, good feelings surface and sometimes I can even recall a moment. The thing is, the memory is one of what was and we can’t recall it with Kendra, share what we remember or hear what she thought. In some ways cleaning out things helps cleanse our sorrows, helps remove our reticence to move forward. We do not remove Kendra from out life by removing things that remind us of her. Yes, some things are cherished and will never be lost in our lives. We just can’t hold on to phantom memories that are recalled through something like a Valentine Card, or a group of objects from her college days. We have to remove some of these things or we are creating a shrine to her that is false. Because Kendra was not the things she left behind. She was real and gave us treasures like her laugh and her sometimes sweet expressions through her very easy to read face. Her emotions were real and if Kendra laughed, everyone laughed sooner or later. No, I wasn’t physically in the room with Shirley. She took this difficult job on by herself. But I was with her. I doubt Shirley knows how much I wanted to be in the room with her. So I just thought about her and hoped and prayed she could get through looking at so many different objects that carried the energy of so many moments and memories. There are things that only one person can do because it is too difficult for two to do together. I know that doesn’t make sense to some people. For us, it allows us to make peace with memories to find closure in our own ways. I could hear Shirley moving things, shuffling things and every once in a while leaving the room with a box of keep sakes and objects. On the other side of all this, sometimes the best thing we can do is be present for each other when there are difficult tasks that have to be done. We need each other for certain things and for others things we need to sort out our own journey the way we feel it, the way we see it, the way we try and understand the journey. We are purging the memories that grieve us, that hold us still. We are holding the memories that sustain us and bring us closer to our memories of someone that was so much a part of our lives, so important to us. The memory of a good person is a blessing. Proverbs 10:7 The journey in this new life is without the presence of Sister, but not without the presence of her impact on my life. My daughter smoothed the rough edges on me. She was showing me how to gracefully accept life in the now rather than be ruled by what I experienced in the past. Her independence and personality was affecting me in such a good way. It still does. Kendra wasn’t perfect, she had my excitability which I worked very hard to keep reined in when I was in pressure situations. Her temper was sharp like mine, and she could be very blunt. There are other short comings, but we all have them, we all have less than desirable attributes that surface at times. Those things bring out the better part of ourselves because no one wants to be known only for their less admirable qualities. So my memories of Kendra are blessings. But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” 2 Samuel 12:23 This verse refers to a child David had out of wedlock with the beautiful (and married) Bathsheba. David had confessed his sins and asked God for forgiveness. God spared David and I suspect it is partly because there was much that God wanted David to do. What most people don’t understand is that there are consequences for sin. I am not going to say the child was part of the payment for David’s sin. The child did fall ill and did not recover. David knew one thing that is probably the best thing he could possibly grasp in all the heartache of his sin and remorse. He knew that he would see the child again one day. He knew he would go to the child. The child was not going to come back, our physical death is final. But, and this is a wonderful thing to remember, we can go to our loved ones someday. My life has been altered and changed in ways that I cannot grasp right now. My sins are my responsibility and yes there will be consequences. David lost his child and gained God’s blessings and forgiveness. Somewhere in all of this grief there will be blessings. Maybe I have already had some of those blessings through God’s will in my life and others that have helped me. The truth is that Kendra cannot come back, but with grace and love, I will one day go to her. I can hold things she gave me and remember her if I desire. I remember her no matter where I am so I don’t have to hold objects or possessions to do that. That is a blessing from our good Lord. Dad
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 12:05:00 +0000
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