Death is a tragedy that often leaves a mark on the souls of the living. It is so often viewed as a future things that we won’t have to deal with for a long time. But, more often than not, it is an event that takes place far sooner than people would ever expect or imagine. It is tragic to hear how often parents bury their children because of an accident or a disease. Children say goodbye to their parents far too soon and are forever touched by that shadow of death. Spouses and loved ones are torn away from us before we had time to make amends or say “I love you” one last time. Even when the death is expected and the person has lived out their best life, death knocks too soon and you can never truly be ready for it when it occurs. Death is the price of our decay.
The weight of death has been heavy on my mind this week as my grandpa’s health grew worse and his body was given over to the decay of cancer. I am grateful beyond measure that I was able to go out and see him a month and a half ago and celebrate his 90th birthday and I am equally grateful that he was as full of life as he could have been and was able to talk with people and laugh and share memories and spend time with special people in his life. I was not fortunate enough to have such a beautiful last memory with my other grandparents before they passed and this is one I will forever cherish in my heart and mind. I am glad he is no longer in pain or suffering, but death always comes with a shadow.
This time in particular brought back memories of when my other grandma passed a year and a half ago and it turned out to be a week of tragedy for almost every member of my immediate family, not anything to do with my grandma’s passing, but just other events that took place in each of our lives that signaled the end and death of other parts of our lives. The hardest part being how personally tragic each of these events were and having to grieve the passing of a loved one while figuring out how to grieve the other things happening in our lives and not being able to share them with each other or with others. It turned the tide for us in a dark way and it felt like more and more things continued to follow through the rest of that year. One big tidal wave of darkness and tragedy after the next.
I honestly don’t know how any of us survived the rest of that year. In many ways, I don’t feel I did. I went numb for about 2 months after that week. The rest of the year I got tossed into a sea of emotions and was being covered more and more with stress at work and getting hit with other big things at home. My mind became a black hole of nothingness, my heart fell apart harder and harder every time something else happened. My soul was lost and empty. My life was plunged into the darkest times I think I have ever experienced in my life. And then everything happening this year in the world on top of everything going on personally in my life and my family’s lives. It’s been hard and it’s hard to see the light when you’re so devoid of anything good or hopeful in your life.
I have had some really good things happen in the last month or so, but every extreme high has been counteracted with just as extreme of a low and it’s been a lot of just everything going on in my life and my grandpa’s health and passing has not been any smaller or lighter to handle, but, oddly enough with everything going on the past few weeks, it’s started to feel like life is happening again. There are little moments that make me think, “Maybe I can get through this.”
So many thoughts having been going through my head today as I’ve thought about my grandpa and those passed events that took place the last time someone in my family died and, me be the fairy tale addict that I am, a scene from the show Once Upon a Time came to mind. For those who haven’t seen the show, there is a season that takes place in the underworld with Hades. The main characters go to the underworld to bring back one of their own and while they are there, they help some people that are trapped there move on. There is a scene at the end of one of the episodes where a flower pops up amidst the cracks and the decay of the underworld and Hades is mad because the flower is a sign of hope and he can’t stand to have that hope popping up in his world of dead souls and darkness.
Ironically, I feel like something like that flower has popped up in my life despite the sadness of my grandpa’s passing. So often we get bogged down with the tragedies in life. We forget to look for the sunshine amidst the fog and the rubble. We live our lives in the depths of our decay rather than thriving in the light that the Father has given us to hold onto. I for one have been drowning and wandering in those worlds of darkness, feeling trapped and unable to move on. Being pulled to the underworld and feeling I have no way to get back to the surface of God’s light and love. But, if even a small seed of hope can be planted and learn to grow in that dark infertile ground, maybe there is a chance for me. Maybe hope can be born out of the darkness. Maybe life can still be found amid the shadows of death.
I don’t know what you are going through. Maybe you have had a year similar to what I’ve had. Maybe things have been harder for you than they’ve ever been before and you’ve lost you’re way in the darkness. Maybe you’re on the other side of the darkness waiting to pull others through so they can experience the life you have found on the other side. Wherever you are at in life. I pray you find a seed of hope to hang onto and that that seed will start to take root and find a way to push through the adversity that buried you and that one day when you turn around, you will see that seed has blossomed into a flower that’s learning to live and grow and believe again. Let God be the hope in your decay.
theatregirl18 