This week is, simultaneously, amazing and terrible, with glimpses of startling beauty and the deepest curse, and it only took a few days to get there.
There was celebrating my friend Carrie and the new life inside her, the happiness of her upcoming new role as a mom. There was breakfast and chocolate and gifts and so much laughter and music. There was the radiance of two first time parents, wide eyed and shining with gratitude.
There was the news that Becca, one of my favorite Rabbit Roomers and a writer friend, is on a beach vacation with her family within reasonable driving distance, and the plans we're making for a little mid-week adventure. There will be pancakes and, no doubt, plenty of laughter and nerd-talk that only people who would show up for a thing called Hutchmoot will get.
There was saying goodbye to my aunt, after her struggle with cancer. This has never really touched our family before, not directly, but what a rollercoaster it is... the ins and outs of treatment, the hospital stays, the sad news she was terminal, the hope that just maybe she would be healed and could enjoy her new home and just a little more time near her family. Just maybe, God would choose that. Stranger things have happened. Why not now?
There was the hurt of knowing that, once again, death comes far, far too fast. We can never be prepared. It always feels like such an injustice.
A baby shower. A breakfast with friends. A funeral. How can it be that love and death, faith and doubt, beauty and ache are all so intertwined? Grief tempers our joy; hope bears us up like a gentle wave in a violent sea. I can't get my head around any of this.
This doesn't have an answer, because it shouldn't. I've heard plenty of answers. I want to live with the questions for a little while.
This doesn't have a point either, other than maybe hold the ones you love a little tighter, and don't turn down the next adventure that comes your way. That's what I'm counting on when Wednesday rolls around. The briefest glimpse of heaven on earth.
The day death shall be no more.
This is beautifully shared Jen. You are right, sometimes there are simply no words...no answer here on earth. We long for glimpses of the eternal in the midst of the temporal and we rejoice in them even in the midst of our sorrow, perhaps, especially in the midst of our sorrow.
ReplyDeleteSending love to you...
deb henderson
I think that's the biggest thing I'm getting out of this week... don't let the sorrow steal the joy. Deb, thank you so much!
DeleteAs the end of one of my favorite books "Till We Have Faces" says, "I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words."
ReplyDelete"I long to look you full in the face, I am read for the Reckoning" -AP
That book is so good. I need to read it again. Thanks for this good word.
DeleteIt's good to be open and honest about the way you feel and be personal sometimes on the internet. I'm hurting with you, dear friend. Sending lots of love and prayers your way during this time.
ReplyDeleteand...because I wouldn't be Kaitlyn without a little joke here or something...go eat your pancakes and griddle one for me. Or something.
I love you! <3
I love you too and I'm going to make a pancake with lots of blueberries in your honor! <3 Thank you friend.
DeleteAnd your jokes always make me smile.
Hear,hear to forgetting the dang blogging rules! What are they anyway? I'm so glad you get to go and have pancakes. And yes it's all so intertwined. Your unedited sharing conveys well, and is good for me to read.
ReplyDeleteRules are stupid, especially when they say "your blog readers don't really care about you." That's dumb. I am so thankful for my friends who care. It would do well to forget the rules more often.
DeleteIt was good for me to write. So thank you Janna! I so wish all of my RR friends were here to have pancakes with us!
I'm catching up on blog reading today and this was yet another winner in that raw, heartfelt way. I remember going to a funeral and then a birthday party and dancing all on the same day, and living with the mixed emotions of the two realities. Death, no matter how expected, always feels so sudden. Thankful there will be a day when death will be no more! Keep writing!
ReplyDeleteKarin, thanks! Truly. I was rereading posts today, and it was a good kind of strange to reread this a few weeks later. It's true. It's all so intertwined, joy and grief. I'm so thankful too that one day it will all make sense.
DeleteThanks for reading, my friend. No worries... I can't help but keep writing! :)
Computerless as I am in this "season of life," I miss a lot on the Internet and get but rare opportunities to catch up on things that pass in my absence. Tonight has provided one such opportunity, so here I am commenting on something a month old.
ReplyDeleteAll I have to say is:
I know how you feel. Thanks for showing me I'm not alone. Also, I appreciate my life more since I've come to know what this feels like. Funny how that happens. Finally, I've been realizing more and more recently that whenever sorrow presses to steal my joy, I acquiesce far too willingly. I pray that your resolve holds better than mine.
From one emo lady to another, I'm glad to know you and call you friend. (It's good to relax your filter sometimes, isn't it?)