Raíces: Rooted in Faith, Familia, and Friendship

We are all keenly aware that life is short.  In an instant, the loss of someone we love threatens to upend everything we know and all sense of normalcy.

I have shared with you a little of my journey losing the dad who raised me 30 years ago.  Over the last couple of years, I’ve watched close friends lose parents, siblings, children and friends.  Each loss marks a somber start to a journey.  Like the call of a new race that you have absolutely no desire to run.  Your energy zapped; your feet set in concrete buckets.  Your soul is dehydrated and all you want to do is leave the starting line and fall asleep under the bleachers.  Maybe forever.

Yet, I am marked by the resilience of the human spirit.  I’ve seen people sob with the sound of a pain so inexplicable.  Still, as time passes, their laughter remains a light-bringing source.  I’ve seen a vacancy in the eyes of many who have suffered loss only to see that emptiness transform into a depth that allows others to seek shelter within it.  More than anything I’ve witnessed, loss seems to dig out a profoundly deep level of compassion that couldn’t be achieved otherwise.

Jesus says this about death in John 12.  “I tell you the truth, a grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die to make many seeds.”  In this verse, Christ was talking about his own death.  That the end was not just inevitable but required of Him in order that His message could move on from the area that He ministered.  Whether you believe in Him or not, we can attest how His message went around the world and is still being shared to this day. 

Once I came across this verse and can recall thinking something like, “Well, I rather have the one I love than the many of whatever is to come.”  Because I was short-sighted and inherently craved what made my own heart comfortable. I’m not chastising myself because of it.  I simply understand that at the time and for a long time, I was limited in what I could do with the reality of my grief.  Until one day, I wanted to get something out of it besides sadness.  It takes the time it takes for you and that is okay!  I do want to say that the sadness of loss never truly goes away.  However, it can run parallel to some amazing life experiences, even intensifying your appreciation of them.

There is something birthed out of processing your pain that will either swallow you whole or propel you forward.  Sometimes when a person passes, it marks the end of a long road of suffering.  Other times, it’s cruelly sudden.  In its devastation, death can provide new understanding of self and reevaluation of purpose.  Precisely because it doesn’t make sense, we create new paradigms of thinking that can potentially make us a better human.  This is what make us ripple out beyond the space that we previously occupied.

I don’t believe that God takes someone we love with the sole purpose of improvement or so that we can lean on Him more.  I truly believe that tragic things simply happen because we are part of the human condition, and we are impermanent.  The thing about God is that He does not let one moment go to waste.  He will use all the raw material to make us carriers of empathy and hope, if we let Him.

I don’t know why some make it and others don’t.  I don’t know why babies get sick and die or why the family members who did so much good for us are gone before we have a say.  I’ll never understand in this life why some of our prayers impact healing on this earth and others are healed in the beyond.  I only believe in the depth of my heart that if I’m still here, there is something I’m supposed to do.  With the time I have left, I really want to make the most of it and impact the people whose paths I cross.

If you are processing the death of someone you love, lean on the people who are making themselves available to you. Give yourself grace and space to grieve. Forgive yourself for missed opportunities and make the most of them now with the ones you still have. The sun will shine again for you, one day soon.