A Quiet Sadness

 

It’s a quiet sadness,

Losing a long-time friend to Covid.

It’s a subtle grief that hits at random times:

Reading an e-mail,

Watching a widower walk down the street alone,

Reading a prayer during Sunday morning worship.

 

Jennifer and I became friends in 1995 when we both began our music education majors at Meredith College. The department was small—only a handful of music majors—so we went through almost all of our classes together and survived the program whose motto was “Suffering Builds Character!”

 

What I remember most about Jennifer was her maturity. She had a wise, old soul—a beautiful soul—and I always respected her for that. Jennifer also had a beautiful smile. It radiated from her core. Jennifer was a genuinely kind person.

 

[I also remember that Jennifer once hit a parked car as she was parking for marching band practice at NC State. Jennifer often drove us to practice. When she did, she always whipped her car into its space. I was always afraid that she would hit a car. Then one day she did. And now I think of her almost every time I park my own car! 😊]

 

After college, Jennifer married and moved to Hayesville, which is about as far west as you can go in NC. I moved to Lillington. Jennifer began teaching band. I began teaching general music. For years, our paths crossed at the Meredith College gathering at the North Carolina Music Educator’s Conference and we always greeted each other with warm smiles and hugs. In time, though, the Meredith gathering stopped happening so our paths stopped crossing…until two years ago. We ran into each other for what would be the last time. Neither of us had heard of Covid in November 2019. How were we to know that the dreaded disease would take her life just two years later?

 

Jennifer and I were long-time friends who held a mutual respect for one another, yet I can’t pretend that we were close over the past 20 years. We were evidently close enough for me to put my head on her shoulder and pose for a picture one time in college, but life took us down different paths with different close friends, and still…her death is a quiet sadness that I carry with me.

 

At Jennifer’s funeral on Saturday, the pastor likened Jennifer to the Beatitudes of scripture: a merciful, pure, peacemaker who hungered and thirsted for righteousness and knew that she could rejoice and be glad because her reward was in heaven. Jennifer’s Facebook page is full of stories of how Jennifer impacted lives. My Messenger inbox is full of messages honoring Jennifer’s memory…

 

I may not have known her as well as some, but I can honestly say that if my life and work are only half as inspiring, impactful, and far-reaching as Jennifer’s, then my life and work will not have been in vain.

 

It’s a quiet sadness,

Losing a long-time friend to Covid.  

It’s a subtle grief that hits at random times.

God: Take the grief. Take the sadness. Take all of the hearts that are lost and broken and hurting and fill them with your quiet hope. Come to us in the stillness, in the devastating quiet, and whisper your subtle peace.

Amen.

And amen.