When the girls were little and we first moved into this house, lilies were planted with the shrubbery that surrounds the house.
Yellow. Pink. White. Purple. Orange.
Calla. Day. Easter. Tiger.
In spring 2018, I pulled them all up.
Years passed. Five years, to be exact. No lilies.
Until last year, 2023, when some of them reappeared at the end of May.
Just the purple ones.
Ella and I wondered…how? Is it a sign of something?
Among other things, lilies symbolize wonder and respect for things beyond the everyday world. Also sympathy, beauty, and rebirth.
Are they a message from one or all of the Dads we lost last year?
The lilies are back again. Just beginning to bloom, and just the purple ones.
Yesterday as I noticed, and snapped a couple photos, a dragonfly landed on me and then hovered around.
In some cultures, dragonflies are viewed as the actual soul or spirit of a loved one who has come back to see them. They are also symbols of spiritual awakening, rebirth, and immortality.
A comforting message. A big hug. A symbol of hope. Prayers answered.
We’ve celebrated all the birthdays and holidays without our Dads and Grandpas. Sometimes we stared at empty seats. Sometimes we took fancy dishes to the couch so a meal seemed nothing like it did before, in a layout where no one was missing. Sometimes we spoke their names. Sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes we cried and sometimes we couldn’t.
Grief is not just about physical separation, a loved one being in another location and not accessible to you. It’s also about what the people who are gone will miss in your life and what you will miss out on because of their absence. For little girls who always assume their Dad will walk them down the aisle one day, grief involves reimagining how big events might go. Grief is about accepting what is, and the loss of what might have been.
Part of why grief is different for each of us is that we process loss and change differently, but also that whoever we’re grieving was a dozen different people. They may or may not have been different with different people, but it’s more that each of us sees others through our own lens – the lens of who we are. Every single person who knows us might describe us differently based on how they encountered us, how we treated them, what they needed from us, what we needed from them. Some people would tell you I cry easily, others would say I’m cold and stay focused. They are both right. One person’s “what a great gal” is another’s “she was a real b word.”
Humans are complicated. Sometimes we hurt people, sometimes unintentionally and sometimes intentionally. Sometimes we love extravagantly. Sometimes we offer anger and sometimes we offer grace. We can all grieve the same person and yet grieve different people, because we grieve imperfect people.
Acknowledging that your loved one wasn’t perfect does not mean you love them any less. It isn’t something we need to feel badly about – it shows that we love with grace.
The easiest grieving, if there is such a thing, is by people of faith for other people of faith. We don’t miss them any less but we know with certainty where that person is, that they are happy, and that we will see them again. One of the toughest is a child for a parent. Children seemingly go through the same stages as adults, but the foundation and security adults have isn’t firmly established yet for young people.
Grief will not end now that the firsts are behind us. Perhaps it will actually get tougher because its timing is not as predictable or because forever settles in. While it seems like we’ve reached a mile marker of some sort, I’m not sure it really means or feels like anything.
What does feel right is that the end of the first year is also the end of winter, and the beginning of spring. One of the colors my Dad loved was green. In the springtime he’d say look at how green everything is! and point out that trees are the most green this time of year. Green is the color of life and rebirth. Of renewal and growth. It’s yellow and blue mixed, or the combination of warmth and hope with calm and strength and peace.
I’m not attached to it, and unlike other years I’ve not spent a lot of time thinking about it. It doesn’t feel right and I just don’t love it. In fact, whenever I hear or encounter it I move to focus on something else. Maybe I simply haven’t been ready for it.
Much of the last year has felt like a trip through the car wash, gear in neutral, with all sorts of things happening around me. But now I’m driving out, rolling down windows, tentatively driving into warm sunshine after a pressure wash.
I can focus on things that used to be painful, and I am no longer afraid to let my mind wander. So I found myself annoyed this week when I couldn’t get a song that I haven’t heard anytime recently out of my head: The Byrds singing Turn Turn Turn is just awful.
To everything, turn turn turn, there is a season, turn turn turn…turn it off! And for the first time I realized that to everything there is a season is a biblical thing and I went searching for it. And to my surprise, the word purpose is also there.
KJV Ecclesiastes 3 says “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”
We have a purpose. Each of us. Figuring out our purpose can be a daunting thing, and I think a lot of us never do it. What’s equally important I’m starting to think, and perhaps not always as big to tackle, is looking for and seeing the purpose of events and seasons in our lives. What is our purpose in them? What is their purpose in us?
Proud VCU Momma!
There are visuals all around me marking the passing of seasons, and the passing of purposes. The bracelet around my gear shift tells the story of a college Mom now, after so many years highlighting childhood cancer awareness. The walls in the room over the garage tell the story of a toddler playroom then paint projects then pajama parties then PlayStation competitions – the seasons of childhood and the seasons of motherhood.
But now a new season is approaching, and with it a new purpose. Maybe it’s been there all along, and I’m just now approaching it. Or maybe it’s been pursuing me and I’ve been running from it.
My first lesson in purpose in this season is that I have to purposefully seek purpose. (And I’ve already lost the first quarter – yikes!) My second lesson is that it sometimes takes a new season to reveal the purpose of events or people or things in your past ones. For things to come together. To fulfill the promise in Romans 8 that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
One Dad’s Bible at another Dad’s desk.
Thankful for nudges, crappy songs, old bibles with new lessons, old desks made new and glorious, and old me made new.
I’ve sat down to write so many times in the last three months, but each time I get up and walk away because I simply have no words.
It’s not disappointing. It’s not frustrating. It simply is.
Each time I wonder what it says that I don’t even care that the words are all gone. And each time I smile as I’m reminded of a trip to the Hallmark store a few years ago. I needed a condolence card and the first one I picked up said only “There are no words.” I can have no words all on my own and for free – the whole point of Hallmark is they are supposed to have the words.
I do still have words for Words With Friends. Name and profile picture removed to protect the one with the high streak of two.
Things that I have always been passionate about do not matter right now. What’s happening in Israel and Gaza, elections, legislation, court decisions, health care. My current world is small, focused just on family as we navigate loss and change. My current job is big, getting us all through this season of loss and change.
I am task after task after task. Trying to predict and prepare for what others will need, trying to appropriately respond as very different people grieve very differently, and often afraid to really think about what I think about it all because I cannot risk a dam breach right now.
Sometimes I don’t even have words when I pray. So I simply sit and remind myself that in Romans, God says that when we don’t know what to pray the Spirit knows and He takes care of it. And then I hope that my cavalier attitude about not having words is not frustrating to God.
The path forward is pretty clear most days. And I even wonder how that is, and if that’s okay, and what that really means or says about me. Am I able to move forward and get stuff done because I care(d) less than others? Am I just more experienced at compartmentalizing? Am I a biblical Martha who just always focuses too much on the tasks? Is a massive dam breach coming? Is it today? There is no end to what I can overthink.
And yet, I know that everything is and will be okay. I was reminded of it this weekend when one of my favorite worship songs came up in the shuffle. Tauren Wells singing Echo always gives me a boost, but the words hit different (Taylor Swift!) this time. Your love is holding on and it won’t let go.
When I don’t have words or peace or answers or prayers, I sometimes wonder if God is far away or busy or that I’ve done something really wrong or that I don’t have enough faith. None of those things is true. I may not be doing a good job of holding on to Him, but He’s still doing His part of holding on to me.
Our household love language is constantly trading memes and reels.
One of my greatest treasures is dozens of little pieces of paper from my Dad. Cartoons he cut out from the newspaper. Thoughts he wrote down and stuck in my purse or laptop bag. Notes from sermons that he wanted to focus on and that he tucked into the bibles he eventually gave us. Little messages from him that I saved over the years and recently went back through as I mentally prepared for Father’s Day.
A three-time Vietnam Vet’s commentary on my date’s attire: “Last time I saw someone wearing something like this I bushwhacked him in the jungle.”
Some were funnies or just hearts expressing love and some were reminders that I could always, always come home. But most are lessons – lessons that are fundamental and yet have different meanings at each life stage and event. Lessons that grow with you, as you grow. I’ve started thinking about them as his constitution. The Constitution of Dad.
Pray every day. Eeeeeeeevery day, he’d say, making sure I knew that the frequency is important. Pray Psalms 91. Pray the prayers in Ephesians. If you don’t know what to pray, just say the name of Jesus over and over. Praying allows God to work. And praying doesn’t change God’s mind, it changes ours.
The longer you wait before making a u-turn, the more costly it is in every way. Sometimes we get on the wrong path. We’re certain it’s right until we know it’s not. It happens to literally everyone. And most importantly, it’s not a disaster. Even if it costs you money or you lose a little time to go back or hop over onto another path, this is money and time well spent.
Let everyone be wrong. About you, about situations, about anything. Your peace is what’s most important and it’s your job to hold on to it. Good humans will admit when they are wrong and reach out to you. You need to admit when you’re wrong and reach out to people.
Be honest, with everyone but most importantly with yourself. See things as they are and not as you want them to be or as you wish others would see them. If you cheat on that test, you did not earn an A or finish first – you behaved in a way to gain something. If you do something halfway, you deserve the C. Cheating and short-cutting will always hurt you more than anyone else.
What you refuse to surrender, you will eventually surrender to. Anger. Addiction. Unforgiveness. Fear. Insecurity. Expecting anything other than what God has promised.
You gotta clean out your mind regularly. Think about what you are thinking about. Just like you tell your hand what to do, you tell your brain what to do. You choose what thoughts to keep and what thoughts to toss. About yourself and about others. If you allow your mind to focus on negative thoughts, you will feel and speak that way. And if you fill your mind with thoughts only about yourself, you won’t be of any use to anyone for anything – especially God.
Do not limit God. With your words, your deeds or your thoughts. And our words have power, so always be mindful of what words come out of your mouth.
Looking at his notes that most spoke to me, all spread out on my living room floor, I realized the common theme is they are paths to or instructions for living freely. There’s even a note on the inside cover of one of his bibles that says Get On With Life.
Like Thomas Jefferson’s reference to our country’s living and breathing document to help guide a nation to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” the Constitution of Dad is my guide to living in freedom.
Brave, Anyway 