A Gold Key
I mindlessly twirl the gold chain around my neck until I reach the tiny square locket that holds a picture of my dad and me on my last birthday.
It jolts me back to reality.
So much has changed.
I’ll turn 39 in a few days with my keepsake necklace representing the gaping hole in my heart.
The heart my dad gave a gold key necklace to when I was a youth. It was a symbol of purity to guard my heart.
Benj had no clue on our first date that I'd said to God that morning, “if he takes me to Tony Roma's, I'll know he's the one,” because that's where my dad took me for dinner the night he gave me my gold key necklace.
And, of course, there we sat at Tony Roma's restaurant after indoor rock climbing on our first date!
Now, that gold key from my dad has a whole new purpose.
The night before my daughter's thirteenth birthday, we took her out for fondue and gave her a special birthday gift, including my gold key. It was a very sweet time with our first baby.
The evening after we gave her the gold key, I’m sitting on the sidelines of a pool as my daughter and her friends slide down a waterslide and maneuver manufactured waves.
Why can't I choose grief’s waves?
I close my book, Living Life Backwards, and switch to the one our church ladies’ group is reading, The Cost of Control, hoping to drown grief with weighty words.
But my books are having a conversation I never initiated; the pressure in my eyelids is building.
I'd been drafting a paper for a seminary assignment on how finitude brings wisdom; how our fleeting days aren't meaningless; how we have no control; and how there is hope in the little book of Ecclesiastes.
The next day, in the safety of my bedroom, I let the sobs out, then pluck away at more research and writing.
Maybe I'll find something new under the sun?
As I go down a rabbit hole of research on grief, it hits me. I'm this person they are describing: searching for meaning, seeking to align my experience with my beliefs after loss!
I write the truth I know:
Enjoy your finite days by living with godly wisdom, and continue to put your hope in the beauty God will bring in time.
It's the theology I grew up innocently believing, but I research, paraphrase, quote and edit like I'm solving a puzzle, not sure what the picture is supposed to be.
Have you ever been the biggest believer and skeptic on the same day?
Because when you are hurting, most things usually sound too peachy or preachy.
God’s always been in the details of my life, which means he's also with me in the loss and grief of life.
My words line up, row after row, to mark another chapter of how life goes on after you lose a loved one.
For instance, February…
I’ll start with the king of our castle’s 41st birthday, which we celebrated while out for dinner at good friends' and enjoyed Benj's mom's signature cappuccino cake!
We made it cheaper by the dozen a week later when friends from out of town, who also have six kids, came to visit.
This was followed by us hosting a double family party to celebrate four February birthdays and a little Super Bowl.
It was nice to bring both sides together.
It didn't fix the hole but plugged it for a while.
And yes, just like that, our first baby is a teenager with a handful of gal pals after last year's prayer request!
Grandma V sketched Annelise’s framed baby face, which hangs at the top of our stairway, and my gold key to my heart hangs around her neck.
And my beautiful, resilient mom weathered her first birthday without her husband, starting the day by taking her first granddaughter, who shares the same birthday, for breakfast to celebrate.
As I reminisce on another month without him—the one who was always there—the ground gives way.
All these special birthdays and holidays parade grief.
How will he never be here with us again, here on earth?
That thought stops my heart.
This semester, while learning about the biblical theology of suffering and hope in seminary, I remember an early miscarriage I had eleven years ago and how I related to Job in a small way when he said, “you give and take away, but blessed be your name” (Job 1:21).
And while I don't want to wrap any of this up with a bow or call it a gift, I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm learning and changing through the tragedy of death and grief again.
I'll even go so far as to call some of it good.
The goodness my dad knew would follow us after he left—the goodness he wanted us to sing about at his funeral.
My husband flies to another province on Family Day weekend to remember his oldest Aunt with family, and I watch the three-hour memorial from my laptop.
Grief catches up while I'm alone late that night.
I call my mom, the closest I can get to my dad. She listens, empathizes, prays, and reminds me of the truth as I sob on the phone.
And that's February.
Well…almost…
I’ll turn 39, submit another paper and try not to have a mid-life crisis.
Or maybe I'm in the middle of one, washed up on the shore from the last wave?
Then I remember coffee with my niece last week when she prayed the image of Jesus walking on water, saying “peace be still” to my grief storms—to my wavering, wandering, wondering ways.
I look at the picture of my dad and me in my locket again and realize:
The key he gave me was ultimately about who is the King of my heart!
It is you, Jesus; it has always been you!
So I don't fear wrestling, month after month, for it’s strengthening my faith and making me more resilient and compassionate.
I like what Kate Bowler says in her devotional book I’m reading through:
I dry my eyes, fold a load of laundry, simmer chicken bones for soup and gather my five children and one teenager for another school lesson—beginning in prayer.
Because there's nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9) unless He makes all things new (Revelation 21:5)!
