The Second Anniversary
Ev’s husband passed away from cancer on Sunday, Novmber 24, 2002. This is her 9-part journal. She prays that it can help other people who are going through the grieving process.
The second anniversary of John’s new life in heaven is almost here. As I look back, I think that while for the first year I just flat-out missed John, this year there were also occasional interludes of grieving for the things we would never do and for the life that would never be. On the other hand, God continues to be real and I find myself adjusting to what is still a ‘strange journey’ to me.
A year ago I wrote in my journal,
“I’m still not completely past the ‘my real life is over’ thing but I have rejected the idea that ‘I am just marking time.’ It’s more like I can’t look forward to the future since even in my imagination it is a total blank. I don’t dread it; I just don’t know what I should be hoping for.
I have a nice job that also includes ministry. I have terrific children and grandchildren. I have friends. I am busy enough that I actually feel I can’t handle all that I’m supposed to do. I feel totally blessed and yet I feel that I’m living a half life. Maybe this is what an amputee feels like when his arm itches but there is no arm to scratch. What do you do with the part of your life that isn’t there anymore? It’s especially confusing when the part that isn’t there anymore is in the future.”
It felt like reverse amnesia. The past was very much alive, but it felt like the future was ‘formless and void.’
Two months later, in January, I wrote,
“Recently I have been asking God if I have been making any progress in this journey that He has laid out for me (I sometimes don’t feel like I have) and every so often when I ask Him one of my questions, a thought will present itself so strongly or with such frequency, that I just accept that as His answer. Over and over again the words that I’ve been hearing are, ‘You are exactly where you are supposed to be.’ Whenever I turn my thoughts to Him, I hear it again, ‘You are exactly where you are supposed to be.’”
In other words, as far as He is concerned, I am neither behind nor ahead of schedule.
Unconditional acceptance
I was trying to understand this unconditional acceptance of what I considered my disappointing imperfections. To be totally honest, I was trying to decide if I should believe these words came from God or if I had just made them up.
Then I remembered almost 16 years ago when John and I attended our first marriage weekend. We wrote each other a letter. In his to me, he touched on an area where I thought I was a real disappointment to him and he told me very convincingly that I suited him exactly the way I was. It was like he had reached inside of me and unlocked a door of amazing feelings for him because I knew I was being loved unconditionally. And now God was doing the same thing.
It’s been five months now since I’ve been in the time warp I just described: Can’t go back, can’t go forward. Then I was invited to go to an international conference for women leaders within Campus Crusade. It was in Thailand. Just traveling there with 15 or so other women already ministered to my spirit.
The keynote speaker used the story of the death of Lazarus to teach us that we may discover that the road to a deeper connection with God includes experiences that first tend to lead us to disconnection, doubt and disappointment with God. Sometimes love permits pain. The disciples and Mary and Martha would never have known Jesus as the Resurrection and the Life if Lazarus had not died. Since this vibrant speaker also admitted to being in her 70s, I was encouraged to believe that there were lots of possibilities of meaningful life ahead for me as well.
Meeting God
In April God met me in a prayer seminar I attended. During one of the sessions it seemed He was letting me see what He had done with my heart after all these months since He had shown me it was broken. He was still holding it in His hands but it glowed with light. I could not see the shape because of the light. It looked like it was round like a ball. He asked me if I wanted it back. I said, ‘yes.’ Was it healed? I couldn’t tell. The light obscured the details. It looked whole to me.
Just a few weeks later I learned that my job would be changing more than I had at first anticipated (with still only a vague definition of what it would be). I was not surprised or even dismayed. I knew it was all part of my journey and that now I was ready for it. I also remembered that I had told God over a year ago that He could choose my job description.
Shortly thereafter I wrote this to a friend:
“Every once in a while I realize how fragile I still am, but on the whole God is sparing me from a lot of extra stress. I can tell I am doing better when I have emotional (and physical) energy to tackle jobs at home that have been left undone for a year and a half (like pulling dead plants out of patio planters). I think my new role at work will be really good for me. I have several tracks that I am going down at once and I imagine some of them will emerge as main ones and some as lesser.”
Then there are the silly things that happen and that God also must laugh about, but still He looks after me. I went for weeks thinking my car’s CD player was broken. The radio worked but not the CD. One day I was giving someone a ride when she mentioned that she was pretty good at figuring out electrical devices. I told her about my CD player. She started pushing the buttons and then ejected the CD that was still in there. She put it back in and it played!
Amazed, I asked, “What did you do?”
She hesitated and said she didn’t want to embarrass me, but the CD had been in upside down. Oh, brother!!
Facing our wedding anniversary again
After a good summer vacation, I faced our August wedding anniversary again. The day was a little easier than last year. I also realized that something else besides my marriage was started 43 years ago. It was the start of being part of the Baerg family. I got a whole family of loving in-laws and that hasn’t stopped. I don’t have to say, “It would have been 43 years”; I can say, “It is 43 years since I became a member of the family.” And I will celebrate that.
In September my mom’s health began to go downhill. She stopped eating and a few days later, on September 17, I sat by her hospital bed as she took her last breath. Her heart and kidneys had both failed. It was the same thing all over again. But then again, no, it wasn’t. The path and the pain were familiar; however I knew that the foggy brain would clear up eventually and that it was okay to cry for a while.
When I found myself thinking, “I must tell mom about this,” I remembered that my internal thought patterns would eventually adjust so they didn’t automatically go there first. Feeling suddenly weepy did not surprise me as much and one of these days I will finish going through the rest of her things.
Once more I allowed myself to not always have to be ‘productive’ because I knew that the day would come again when God would lift those protective clouds as well.
In the meantime, God is tenderly teaching me that He is my life.
