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A gracious woman retains honor. __Proverbs 11:16
This past Thursday morning Sonja and I got the call that ended up being “the call.”
With Sonja’s mother being 90+ we knew statistically that “the call” was growing imminently closer. However, you’re never really prepared.
The call came around 7:30 a.m. that Ruby had been taken to the hospital and was unresponsive. By the time we had made the drive from Illinois to South Carolina she had departed this world and as we walked into her home Thursday evening it felt so empty, forever bereft of her presence.
As far as our personal story, I’ll leave it there.
But having spent almost a lifetime in the ministry, I have walked with hundreds of people through the valley of the shadow of death and here’s some general reflections:
First, theoretically, we know how people feel when death knocks at the door of their lives. But the key word is theoretical. We can never know how people really feel and the less said is usually the best said.
What is more important during times of deep loss and grief is the ministry of presence. Don’t try to fix things – it is unfixable. Don’t try to tell them it is or will be okay – it will never be okay – not in this life.
Let them grieve, let them feel their emotions, let them process things the way God wired them. Just being there, just reaching out, just showing you care…that’s enough unless they ask for more.
And then to the one who has suffered the sorrowful loss…
Picture it this way.
Picture you have lost your right arm (and you’re right-handed). Maybe it was a life-saving surgery that required the removal of your arm in order to save your life or maybe the loss was the result of a terrible accident; either way, you’ve lost your right arm.
It will not grow back. Nothing you can do will cause it to grow back. Nothing.
What you must do now is learn to write with your left hand. And more importantly, you must learn to do life with only one arm. And the hopeful news is: You can. Others have and you can too.
Live my dear friend. Live! Even without your “right arm”.
You will never get over the loss you have experienced. Don’t try to. Like Jacob following his encounter with God, you must learn to walk with a limp (Genesis 32:25). And like Jacob, you will be better for the limp – wiser, humbler, more keenly aware of what really matters.
Matter of fact, often our greatest contributions come.
Finally, remember, death is the great equalizer; it comes to us all.
One day someone will receive “the call” about you. Live in such a way that it will be one of the saddest calls they ever received. Sad because you lived so well and loved so fully that to them, it will be like having their arm ripped off.
The ONE THING for today: Rest in peace, Ruby Jean Knight, you are forever loved, and (currently) deeply missed, but we will meet again.
*****
“But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven; and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow on the waters that was soon lost in the West.
There still he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle-earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart.
Beside him stood Merry and Pippin, and they were silent.
At last the three companions turned away, and never again looking back they rode slowly homewards; and they spoke no word to one another until they came back to the Shire, but each had great comfort in his friends on the long grey road.” _J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
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