The twenty-eight-year-old young man had just witnessed his momma crossing over her eternal threshold while his five-year-old boy was in the next room dreaming of the Legos that remained strewn all over the kitchen table.
“It looks like a major project is underway!”
His grief smiled as he responded, “Yes, my boy loves his Legos,” and mindlessly worked the yellow piece to fit the blue piece.
“Tell me about your momma.”
Not looking up, his voice whispered, “She was a nurse. She took care of so many people but not herself until recently… and then this happened.” His eyes glanced at the bookshelf in the next room. “She loved reading.“
“What did she read?”
“Mostly non-fiction history. Oh, and she loved her poetry. She was so brave. After one round of chemotherapy, she knew she didn’t want to do it that way.”
She took her last breath at 11:30 p.m. in a tiny apartment that was as sweet as she was. She was surrounded by bits and pieces of what was left of her life, glimpses of her affections that meant something to her, all crowned by her boy. And in the end, he had given her the ultimate gift—his presence. His love and willingness to care for her despite the cost of such a grueling journey.
“I never thought I would have to do the things that I have had to do. This was so hard and almost impossible at times. She did it her way. I am thankful she doesn’t have to do this anymore.”
Watching his quivering lips touch his mom’s pale forehead for the last time melded my tender heart further into a puddle of great compassion and respect. What a brave young man. What a brave young daddy. On Father’s Day, his gift wasn’t a card or a fishing pole. There was no special dinner waiting for him on the table covered with Legos. I wondered if his little boy even knew to say, “Happy Father’s Day” in the midst of this day with little life left.
Instead, a wafting of something far greater and different was happening. Something most would miss. This new fragrance was the ultimate gift of seeing his mom relieved of her pain and suffering, knowing she was in a new place of perfect peace. The cleft within the grief. The higher road. The moment when the relief challenges the intense battle with loss. The luminal space of life and death.
We know not what the next moment brings. What we do know is Who holds the next moment and Who holds us. What an honor to be the arms and the heart to hold him in his tears, to listen to his heart juggling grief and relief.
As I emptied his grief that had attached to my heart onto the pages of the landscape of God’s heart, my french doors were wide open, welcoming the wind and creation. That’s when the sound of the plane overhead drew my attention to my own dad, and remembering that luminal space of grief and relief that gifted me with the ability to release him with love into a new space of grace—the one of perfect peace.
It was at that moment I noticed a single white cloud hovering above. A question arose, “Is it possible?”
As the wisp disappeared, I was left wondering if I had witnessed her spirit, finally free of her tired riddled body. Was this feathery wisp a gift given to say, “Thank you for holding my boy last night”? I felt a familiar warmth and comfort infusing the crevice that had been etched the night before, knowing I was in the presence of the unseen, the Holy One.