together
Bad news rings at the wrong time. The sound, that deceptively light chime, actually shatters and splinters without warning, and the only awkward truth it tells is that it doesn’t belong. The sound of that phone, it is the wrong sound. Zoe and Kevin laugh easily in the other room, their voices carrying indistinctly, and Adam’s music–something retro–makes a light background to our reminiscing. Christmas lights blink on Mom and Dad’s Christmas tree. We are cozy-wrapped and unprepared, but how does one ever prepare to be broken? I listen to Mom’s voice as she answers the phone, that tired, hard-edged acceptance, and I think about how good news came heralded with the way prepared, but humbly, cloaked in vulnerability and obscurity. I think about how ever-presence came glory-muted in a baby’s cry. Withness came to people in pain.
We drive in last night, and even before we turn into the driveway, I see Mom standing just beyond the screen door, her shrinking stature silhouetted by warm light pouring through the doorway. I chuckle, calling our chaotic arrival an “invasion,” but no one waits that way for invaders; no one warms up supper and smooths the sheets on the beds and stands ready to open the gate, the arms. Only prodigals return home this way; only love prepares such a generous welcome; only grace waits, watching the road.
If you line up the facts, coming this weekend feels unwieldy; we have all discussed this. Easily, in thinking over it, we trip over our human logic. We forget our limited perspective–those planks in our eyes. We talk in terms of hours and miles and human plans, and then, maybe recklessly (at least we think so), we ignore all that and just go. Usually, because it’s all that we can handle, God only lets us gaze upon His back. And until the moment when we see him, we live blind.
Street lights–just a few–create warm pools along the ink-black road. By them, as we draw near, I see Spanish moss swaying and the wet glint of puddles. And so by grace, we quietly arrive on that little island, the name of which no one except familiars ever knows how to pronounce, to that little street most only know of as a byway. The tires crunch against the asphalt, and then the car doors snap; these are the only sounds, and then Mom’s voice, calling welcome from the top of the stairs.
Embraced, even for all our chaos and cumbersome baggage, we spend most of the next full day in that warm light I first saw spilling from the doorway, with no thoughts of loss, tasting deliciousness, our arms and our laps full of gifts and overflowing; warmer for the nearness of each other. My brother sits beside me at the table; we sip coffee; I can feel the heat of his arm against mine. Later, as the sun goes down, I sit cozy with a blanket wrapped around my legs. We laugh about nothing–memories hiding in old family pictures, letters the kids wrote when they were small. We lounge on sofas; we wander in and out of the room, sometimes in body, sometimes just in thought; we eat cheesy quesadillas–Kevin and Zoe’s creation–for dinner off of paper plates. And then loss comes, always an uninvited interloper, the pealing of bells–a cell phone chime, a phone ringing after dark. In the space of minutes, we discover that an old friend has died, and then, that my uncle soon will. It’s just a matter of time.
Death, the never-meant-to-be, inevitably shatters our happily-ever-afters, or it did, until, as I said, Withness came to people in pain. I didn’t always understand what the scripture means when it says that God is close to the brokenhearted. I used to imagine that nearness only theoretically. But Mom sets the phone back on its cradle and relays the bad news, her voice fissuring just a little, and our eyes mirror the breaking, and I think maybe Riley softly says, “Oh no.” And instinctively, we draw close. We make an awkward circle, our bodies a broken jumble, and Dad and I wrap our arms around Mom, and Kevin prays. Our heads bob in agreement; our arms tighten; our tears roll, our hands soothe. For a while, we just move in and out of each other’s arms. Softly and slowly, our conversation drifts toward heaven, and I realize all over again that it’s no small thing to be together.
Our lives repeat the story of God, not in ignorance of bad news but because of it. These moments are redemptive refrains. The people living in darkness have seen a great light. Just now I blink, staring at God’s back, finally picking up the storyline. God draws near to the brokenhearted, often literally near, in your humble form, and mine. God puts on skin and bone and comes to be with us. Huddling there with my family, in a knot of living and breathing grief, I remember something Mordecai said to Queen Esther, “Who knows but that you have come…for such a time as this?”
