The plane just lifted off the ground, lifting my feet from the only United soil I’ve ever stood on to drop me in a foreign nation. New York to Paris, Paris to Nairobi, Nairobi to Kenya to go and be the light- to be fruitful and multiply. I still get mad sometimes when I think about how satan killed the perfect fruit of my womb before it could multiply – plucked it up, roots and all – and we placed the broken pieces in a box in the ground.
Anger is the first stage of grief. I’ve been told before I’m slow.
It’s 5:26 back home, in the air it’s that plus one hour and midnight 26 where I’ll soon be. Rewind seven years from any of those, and there I am, tucked away safe in my cozy country home, still a mother of three – unbroken, unscathed, still warm – undead. I did not know the sun was setting on the last of your breaths as I folded the clothes. There we were – 23 year old you abducted by a silent runaway train of pain called Unseen suspended between your last sunset and grave, and me about to face the yellow sun of an ugly and evil dawn.
The last thing you said was “I’m sorry, mom-” text that sealed your end and killed the me I knew, in a tiny happy bubble of blue…
Tomorrow on year seven we land in Kenya – my group, your memory, and me. Out of eight billion people on earth, God chose a wretch like me to go to a people who feel like you felt – forgotten, unloved, Unseen – and tell them how much He loves them. I’ve realized it’s no mistake that on this seventh year since you’ve stopped breathing God is displaying His mighty outstretched hand – covering this death wound in some lovely holy scar.
I’ve wondered if I’m closer to you up here – if you’re perched outside on a wing watching me surf the sun and dance on the edge of light in spite of satan’s sinister schemes. I’ve wondered if healing is possible, while gripped in the pain of God’s love, and I’ve wondered if God would have mercy on me if one day, I too took the shortcut home. But I know the source of the lies in my mind and I know the Redeemer by Name. I’m called, I am chosen, I’m wounded and suffering, and serving Him one in the same.
What will I say to them? What would I say to you if you were here? I would say, “God blesses you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied. God blesses you who weep now, for the time will come when you will laugh with joy. God blesses you who are hated and excluded and mocked and cursed because you are identified with me, the Son of God. When that happens, rejoice. Yes! Leap for joy! For a great reward awaits you in heaven,” (Luke 6:20-23).
I saw you in Emma today. Maybe I was guilty of looking too hard, but maybe God just gave me a gift. After seven years of missing you, I miss you still. As long as I am seeing, you are not unseen.
Though I am weeping, I am leaping in the valley of your death and learning to lean on Him.
I love you always.
Love,
Mom
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