I can´t wait for the day that death will lose its sting.
My first encounter with death was when my sister’s parakeet died. I was six years old and I remember seeing Chakeeta lying on her back, feet stuck straight in the air. My four-year-old sister, Emily, and I walked hand in hand and informed each neighbor of our loss. I remember when we reached the Aubry’s house Emily started to cry and Mr. Aubry got on his knees and held her.
Shortly after that my family moved to the country in Georgia. There was an old shack of a barn that my parent’s said would be a good home for my guinea pig, Sugar (he was white), and Emily’s, Skunky (he was black and white). Our home wasn’t built yet, but my parents promised the guinea pigs would be ok there over night. We were new to country and didn’t realize the hazards of wildlife. I had a habit of calling Sugar “my son.” I hugged him and promised I would be back in the morning to see him.
The next morning when we came back I ran to the cage in the barn shack only to find it empty, the door wide open. I started calling, “Sugar! Skunky!” I heard my brother yell behind me, “Skunky!” He was pointing to the ground. Poor Skunky was shredded into a million pieces. I started screaming at the top of my eight year old lungs, “Why God?! The construction workers stood looking out the windows of our half built home as my sister and I wept, hugging the earth as if it could absorb our pain.
There were bunnies, chickens, ducks, horses, and goats to follow that also fell victim to coyotes and other wildlife. I cried for each one.
I remember, after losing a second set of bunnies, crying to my Dad, “Why does this keep happening?” His answer only broke my heart more; “Maybe God is preparing you for greater loss.”
In high school I had to look into the casket of one of my classmates. He was a funny kid. He was a friend of my brother. One time he sat in the back of my mom’s mini-van with me as we drove to one of his and my brother’s basketball games. He made me laughed the whole way there.
He died in a car accident when he was on his way to school. I didn’t cry very much at first, but when I did it was when I hugged his mother and realized the warmth and love in her embrace and how she couldn’t give that to him anymore. That’s when I learned death is when something that possessed your love can no longer actively receive it.
Halfway through college I took a semester off to nanny in Colorado and figure out more of a plan for my life. One night I received a call from my wing mates. I could hear screaming in the background and my friend was crying. She told me that one of our wing mates was killed along with three other students in a car accident.
I remember looking into my deceased friend’s casket and praying that she didn’t feel any of the pain that disfigured her beautiful face. I wept in the arms of her family, embarrassed to be the one consoled. I couldn’t form words of hope or encouragement. All I managed to say was, “I’m sorry” between sobs.
I first met Craig on a mission trip, I was seventeen, but we dated when I was eighteen. I remember the first time we walked in public holding hands I felt like a million bucks. I was so obsessed with him, almost always giddy. We only dated for a summer, but remained close friends. He lived in Colorado and I was in school in Indiana. I would play the guitar and sing to him over the phone. He liked when I sang. The last time I saw him was in Colorado when I was nannying. He picked me up in his Silverado truck. We ate out and went on a hike and debated whether it was right or wrong to drink alcohol.
We always said we loved each other. The last time I spoke to him he was riding motorcycles with friends. Our conversation ended with, “I love you.” Not the romance kind of love, but the kind that meant, “I know you, I know where you’ve been and where we’ve been together and for that I love you.” It’s too bad there isn’t an English word for that kind of love.
Two months later I was in Wal-Mart with my friend Kristy. My phone rang and his name showed on my screen, “Craig!” I answered, but it wasn’t him. It was his mom (whom I was friends with also). “Oh hi! How are you?” I said in surprise. “Oh Estie, I’m so sorry, I’m not good, something happened to Craig. Estie, Craig was in a terrible motorcycle accident, I’m so sorry, he didn’t make it.” My legs turned to Jell-O. I held onto the shelves into the home good aisle to keep from falling over. Kristy took me back to my apartment where I proceeded to call mine and Craig’s mutual friends to let them know.
“How many times can a heart sustain a broken heart?” I remember thinking.
Craig’s mom came to see me shortly after he passed. She brought me the old picture of he and I that was in his room. I showed her the stuffed orange gorilla “OG” I still had that he won at a fair for me. We laughed as we shared our memories of Craig together.
I think what helped me grieve Craig was knowing what he would have wanted. He wasn’t one to grieve longer than necessary. One time before he passed I called him and was crying about something, after he listened to me share all my woes he said, “That’s a bummer Estie.” Something about his answer made me mad because I wanted him to wallow with me in my self-pity, but all he gave me was the word, “Bummer. That’s life and we have to get back up and keep moving forward.” Craig’s death was way more than a “bummer” it was a tragedy, but the principle he set was to keep moving. He liked to find reasons to be happy.
After I started working as a nurse I started to see death on a regular basis. I remember doing chest compressions on a patient and realized I felt nothing. Maybe it was because I didn’t know the person personally, but that didn’t change the fact that they belonged to someone else. I knew then I had to start praying. I had to pray for them and their families so that I wouldn’t grow numb to death.
What I’ve learned from death is that it makes life more real. Losses make your joys that much greater. On one Grey’s Anatomy episode (don’t laugh) Meredith states, “You only lose as much as you’ve ever gained.” And Jim Elliot said something like, “It’s better to have loved than not at all.”
I experienced death again last night. If you’ve read my earlier blogs there’s one titled, “Jesus at the Park.” I found out Jesús died in an accident last week. I checked my thumb to make sure the scar hadn’t faded too much. It hadn’t. I’m glad.
I don’t think I’ll ever “master” the devastation of death, but I’m learning that the more I love the more I’ll probably lose. And rather than getting stuck on the “why?” of death I have to find joy in that I at least that person existed and at least I was lucky enough to have known them; and in that sense, I am blessed.
