In Tandem

It's remarkably easy to become calloused when it's not your pain.

When it's someone else's family member. Someone else's health. Someone else's livelihood. Someone else's depression. And it happens even when we ourselves have experienced loss, perhaps in the very same areas. We're quick to forget how it felt.

Lately I've realized how numb I've become to others' problems. Second thoughts? More like second nature not to give them when bad news hits my ears. Easier to scroll away and drown it all out with to-dos and entertainment, no? [Honestly, I debated about even posting this because my inner cynic reared it's head with "who really cares?"]

But when pain visits you in a personal way, memories and emotions come flooding back.

...

You were still here when I started mentally drafting these thoughts. But just barely. And the moment I walked out of your hospital room earlier today, somehow I just knew: I wouldn't be seeing you again. But I'm thankful for the chance to hold your hand and say goodbye as I monologued about going to the park with a new book.

The past week and a half had me thinking about all the things you'd miss, big and small:

• the annual book sale that we went to last year whose 2022 dates you couldn't stop asking me about!

• the next season of All Creatures Great and Small, a wonderfully endearing TV show we both enjoyed

• your eightieth or even ninetieth birthdays (yes, I once thought you'd reach the latter considering your father was ninety-eight!)

• the future potential weddings of the rest of your grandchildren

Then I started thinking about all the things you'll get instead:

• answers to questions you could never find in any book, not even the ultimate one

• a far more beautiful country than the incredible English and Scottish settings in that show

• more "birthdays" than you could ever count in a world where they never "go downhill"

• reunion with those who've gone before and with the One who's gone before so that you'd be free to come in the first place

For those left behind, the timing of it all was like getting hit by a bus. But for your sake, I'm thankful for the brevity of your suffering. On my way home, I listened to a song about getting older and letting go of those you love. [I may or may not have cried as much as I used to when I would leave your house as a kid, lol.] The lyrics couldn't have been more fitting:

And I don't have a doubt you will be alright // Cause' I know there's a healer in the sky. // When my candle burns out you will be alright' // 'Cause I know there's a healer in the sky.

~ Healer in the Sky, The Secret Sisters

...

I'm quick to lose sight, yet more and more I realize it's plain to see: everything is in tandem. Every day hints at the both the frailty of life and the promise that there's more. A dead flower reminds us that everything dies. A live one that everything will live on, one way or another.

Beauty points forward. May it point you (and me) in the direction of Christ.