On Long Goodbyes and Exchanging Ashes for Beauty

Child, I want you to know that sometimes there are no words, and questions hit us deep, and really, we’re inadequate in expressing, let alone understanding, the ache of a world that doesn’t make sense. When there are so many ashes, and it’s hard to see beauty. Because honestly, we want everything to be okay, and to reconcile – to see immediate redemption. I’m learning though, that redemption of what we see with our eyes can be a long, long process. Over the past months, when I’ve read of Kara Tippetts’s beautiful “long goodbye” and journey with cancer, I’ve been there, considering the profound, baffling unfairness of death on those who remain living. You’ve watched me, wondering what in the world Mama is crying over as I read out loud her online words to your Daddy – words that hit far too close to home for me. Words from another woman – the exact same age as me – who feels like a sister of the heart, who realized that she was experiencing her ‘lasts’. When she described the last time her feet would seek out that warm spot in the bed left by her husband? It left me completely undone.Two years ago – almost exactly – I went in for a routine test, not terribly concerned with the outcome, until I watched the ultrasound technician’s face and answered her out-of-left-field questions. On my way home, I stopped for a super-caffeinated, high-lactose, half-sweet overpriced frozen drink, because I had the sense that everything wasn’t as okay as I thought, and that coffee made everything normal for just a little while longer. When the doctor called immediately and used the word “tumours”, my world shifted on its axis, and it hasn’t been the same since. He sent me that same afternoon for tests, not telling me exactly what they were, but of course, we live in information-overload, so I jumped online and discovered what I didn’t want to know – the requisition in my hand was for a cancer marker test. Every two weeks for almost four months, I headed into the clinic to draw blood, testing and retesting. They were long, very difficult days and weeks before surgery revealed that my diagnosis was not cancer. Before we got that news? There were long nights of praying through fears that I would also leave behind the brave, beautiful man I love. That I would never meet you, the daughter of my heart.Child, there are so many things you need to know about what your Dad and I journeyed with during that time. Things that I’m still processing. Things about providence and perseverance, things like pressing in and pressing on. Things like making hard choices, learning to grieve the loss of dreams and what might have been, while choosing hope.And as I read about Kara’s journey, I have no answers for why one mother’s earthly life ends, and another’s is miraculously extended. Honestly, I have no idea. I wasn’t quite your mother yet, but we were in process for you, Dear One. Although I didn’t know it, I was already your Mama. In you, the Lord exchanged beauty for our ashes, and He gave us more than we ever could have imagined or dreamed of. For others, this great exchange of handing over ashes means stepping into eternity.[tagline_box backgroundcolor="" shadow="no" shadowopacity="0.2" border="1px" bordercolor="" highlightposition="top" link="" linktarget="_self" buttoncolor="" button="" title="Things that I’m still processing. " description="Things about providence and perseverance, things like pressing in and pressing on. Things like making hard choices, learning to grieve the loss of dreams and what might have been, while choosing hope. " animation_type="0" animation_direction="down" animation_speed="0.1"][/tagline_box]This is all I know: that in those long, dark nights, although I did not want to leave your Daddy a widower, I had never been more aware of this life being a mere blink in the timeline we’re truly living. And knowing that? It changes everything. Every. Thing. It frees us to live fully in our days, regardless of how many there might be left or what they might hold. It allows us to live with remarkable joy and hope, because in due time, it all will be exchanged for beauty, Love.It changes today, too. When we have been given the chance to draw breath another day, while another’s breath ceases – there is still purpose for us. There is a reason for living. Choose faith, joy and hope today, Love, even if you can’t yet see the beauty for the ashes. There’s life everlasting ahead & grace enough for us as we journey through.