Pop’s Page

It was a Monday four weeks ago that Susan went to her eternal home. I thought when I wrote the post below entitled “Two Weeks” that perhaps I had reached the bottom of my grief. I haven’t. In some ways these last two weeks have been much harder than the first two. Now I find myself mentally “rewinding the tape” to a time when Susan wasn’t ill. I’ll be standing at the sink, brushing my teeth, and fully expect her to come into the bathroom from the closet. Then I catch myself and a little recording goes off in my brain: “she’s gone and she’s not coming back.” At that I really feel depressed. Or I will hear the garage door open while I’m sitting in my study upstairs, and I’ll say to myself, “oh, she’s back from shopping.” Then the little recording goes off once again: “she’s gone and she’s not coming back.” Once again my spirits sink.

Yesterday in church, we sang a favorite hymn of mine, “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go.” I got through the first verse OK, then we came to the second verse, and could no longer control my emotions. It goes:

O Love that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee; I trace the rainbow through the rain, and feel the promise is not vain, that morn will tearless be.

It was the part about the tearless morn that got me. I’m having trouble keeping my mornings tearless these days.

There was a long interlude while the ensemble paused to let the instrumentalists play, during which time I thought to myself that surely I could make it through the 3rd verse. But then I read it and didn’t even try to sing it. It goes:

O Cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red, life that shall endless be.

Today, in our front yard, the rose bush that Terrie gave is full of blossoms red. Susan loved that bush so much, and would immediately go out and cut the blossoms and bring them into the house so we could enjoy them all day. I’m leaving them where they are, except for one small bloom which I placed in a bud vase on the table in our bedroom at the spot where she died at 12:14 PM today.

Last night an unusual thing happened. Peter came down with some type of stomach ailment, so I stayed up late attending to him. (He’s better now, but Puddleglum–that’s what the kids call me–expects he has appendicitis, and will need to go to the ER shortly….) I finally dozed off to sleep, and in my dream I saw Susan coming into the bedroom and walking right toward the bed on the right side. The dream was so vivid that I said out loud “what’s going on?” The words spoken out loud, of course, woke me up and when I opened my eyes, Susan had vanished, and again I said out loud, “Oh…” as I realized it was only a dream.

Some day I will open my eyes and she really will be there; or, rather, I will be where she is now. On that day we will see together those red blossoms that mark the beginning of life that shall endless be.

Two weeks ago today my beloved soared to worlds unknown, while I sit lonely looking at her photograph as those beautiful brown eyes stare out at me, still searching my face and my soul to see what lies there. How I miss her. How I grieve that she is gone, never in this life to be close to me again.

I stare at the brown loose leaf book of names, left behind by the mourners who attended me at the visitation and at the funeral. Most of the names I recognize. Some are strangers to me, and others that I expected to be there are missing. I want to give the book to her, because she would know what to do with it. She would know how to respond to those names—to those who sent flowers, or cards, or came to hear a remembrance of her life and the preaching of the Word of encouragement. But without her I am lost. I hardly know how to proceed.

She would have answered them perfectly. That beautiful cursive style that marked her handwriting would have penned just the right words of thanks. But I am left to do it in my illegible scrawl, or perhaps to print each word like a 3rd-grader so the reader can actually comprehend my stammering thoughts.

I knew in my mind that death was real. That someday there would be a parting. That the sweet voice that caused my heart to beat at twice its normal rate would be silenced. That the penetrating gaze of her that knew me like no other would cease to be as her eyes closed in death. But my mind is not my heart. There was no knowledge that prepared me for the ache my heart feels at her leaving. How I loved her! How I do still. And even more, how she loved me! How can I go on without that love propelling me forward on the seas of life?

Lord, only You can fill the void she left in my soul when you took her to Yourself. Please do.