It’s been a rough week, folks. Not necessarily at work—though I’ve had my fair share of rough patches. But inside my head and on the shards of my broken heart.
Those of you who have been reading my notes for awhile will know about whom I speak when I mention Kay. I write about her each year around the second week of November, yet this year’s writing is early because of how heavily she’s been on my mind this week.
It started Sunday night. As I prepared to go to my dad’s associational meeting that evening, I found myself filled with unexplainable anxiety. I wasn’t late. I wasn’t on the program. I wasn’t scheduled to see anyone new. I was just deep down, butterflies in my stomach, back quivering anxious.
As I stood in line to register, though, I realized where the feeling was coming from: The last time I went to an associational meeting at that church and stood in that same line, I was standing in line behind Kay.
The first wave of deep grief hit on my way to praise team practice that night. In addition to remembering Kay’s death, I realized that most of the people who were in my life at that time are gone, too—not to physical death but to time’s natural passing.
That wave of grief colored much of my Monday, and then another, much deeper, wave of grief overwhelmed me on Tuesday. I remembered every vivid detail of the last moments I saw Kay, the phone conversation that told me something was wrong, the hours that I stood outside her apartment waiting for the rescue squad prepare her body for transport, the minutes after I got home, the days I spent helping clean her apartment--the sights, the smells, the confusion, the hurt. I sobbed on the way to counseling. I sobbed in counseling. I sobbed on my way home from counseling. I sobbed as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep. And I woke up yesterday feeling like I’d been run over by a truck…
Sunday is homecoming at church. The choir is singing “Find Us Faithful” for our choral anthem:
We're pilgrims on the journey
Of the narrow road
And those who've gone before us line the way
Cheering on the faithful, encouraging the weary
Their lives a stirring testament to God's sustaining grace
Surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses
Let us run the race not only for the prize
But as those who've gone before us
Let us leave to those behind us
The heritage of faithfulness passed on through godly lives
Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful
May the fire of our devotion light their way
May the footprints that we leave
Lead them to believe
And the lives we live inspire them to obey
Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful
After all our hopes and dreams have come and gone
And our children sift through all we've left behind
May the clues that they discover and the memories they uncover
Become the light that leads them to the road we each must find
Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful
Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful
For some reason, the choir has struggled with this anthem. As we practiced last night and I listened to their hesitation in singing, I thought about the message of the song—the message of single-minded devotion to God that I’ve been trying to get the choir to share—and I thought about…Kay.
I thought about her cheering on the faithful and encouraging the weary. I revisited those moments of literally sifting through all she’d left behind. And I stopped rehearsal and leaned against my podium and shared some of the burden that I’d been carrying all week.
My choir listened. My choir heard. And then they sang the anthem the best they’d ever sung it shortly afterward.
I imagine Kay would have been happy had she been sitting in the sanctuary with us last night. I imagine she would have sat on the front pew with her eyes closed, hands in receiving position, smiling as she listened—just as she listened to my band play on the last morning of her life. And I imagine she’d be smiling with me now—the day after the day after completely falling apart—celebrating just how far I’ve come and just how much farther there is to go.
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