Reflections on life 1 year later

Everyone gets wounds.  This is an inevitable part of life.  One interesting aspect about wounds is that some of them are so deep that, upon healing, they eventually result in a scar.  For instance, I have a scar on my right arm, and I’ve had it since I was a child.  Similarly, there was a wound that happened to me a year ago; the wound of the unexpected homecoming of my dad.  While I have been focusing on (and celebrating) Dad’s existence in Heaven, it hasn’t been a picnic for the countless individuals who feel his absence.

Back on Memorial Day, I quoted from Richard Exley’s book “When You Lose a Loved One”.  At one point in the book, Exley quotes Joe Bayly who said these words: “Death is a wound to the living.”  It’s so true!  And, once again, even after the wound heals, the scar will remain forever.  In other words, even though I will always miss my dad, the acute intensity of these early days will eventually pass.

For many years my dad signed off of his radio broadcast by saying, “God bless!  Keep your hand in His hand, and keep on keeping on.”  We are striving to “keep on keeping on”, and while the wound is still fresh, I can testify that it is God who is sustaining us.  Psalm 146:9 says that God “sustains the fatherless and the widow” (NIV).  I’m proof that He certainly does sustain the fatherless, and I know that my mom would quickly affirm that she is being sustained by God as well.

When you lose someone you love unexpectedly, it has a profound impact on you.  It colors the way you view life.  I like the way a character on the short-lived TV show “Birds of Prey” put it: “You lose someone and it changes you so much; how you think about life and death.  It makes everything different.”  I may look the same, but I’m not the same person I was a year ago.  A major life event such as this changes you.

I could list example after example of this, but to give just one, in the movie “The Truman Show” Truman Burbank (played superbly by Jim Carrey) made a profound statement.  He said, “Life is fragile.”  While I may have had an intellectual understanding of Truman’s thought before the events of last year, I now find myself resonating deeply with it.  Life certainly is fragile.

Kevin

“God bless!  Keep your hand in His hand, and keep on keeping on.” – Jerry Bauer (1954-2015)