The Reason

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Twas the night before Christmas eve… and all through the house… not a creature was stirring except 3 Danes, a redbone hound lab and some kind of husky pittie mix. That’s all I got. I can still hear my Granddad reading that story as my mother recorded it for us so long ago. I’m not sure I ever watched it again. I never needed to. I’ll never forgot his timeless voice. The uncommon way he cleared his throat. If you watched the church service from First Christian Church you knew he was in the congregation because you could hear him clear his throat. It was trademarked. Carl O.Bolton. I think of him so often. His gentle strength. His knowing… his all knowing of his own faith. His perseverance in life as he aged. He only slowed at 87. He only stopped when His Father called him home. I got to be there beside him. As he drew his last breath. I wanted to know if it was true what the preacher had told me about feeling a presence leave. It was not. I felt nothing of the sort. It was more as if he was tired… and he was just ready to go home. And he went. And he was gone. I saw him with his eyes closed. And he went. It wasn’t traumatic for me. It was peaceful. By that time it was at least my third experience with death of a loved one. They were all old. All over eighty. All my grandparents. My parents let us attend funerals and never tabooed death. It was a part of life. I watched a tear run down my father’s face for the first time when his own father passed at 84. He looked up across the quiet room in the hospital… a tiny room, we were almost knee to knee. He gave me a look like- ” well, now you’ve seen me cry. Because it hurts. But life is going on”. It was so weird. Like I could read his mind. He had a small….smile? Was he embarrassed I’d seen him cry? That he was vulnerable? Like I’d seen him bare naked? It was life. It did go on. Fairly normally really. The next time I saw him cry would be many years later. At the loss of MY child. What a paradox. His father at the end of his life and my son at the beginning of his. It was unnatural. Life was NOT going on. Life crashed into a wall and crumbled into a pile. The world continued to turn, yes. Life? No. Life does not go on. Life halts. Must be reconfigured and somehow started again. It is like trying to get a steam engine running full steam again… takes some time. But when the engine has cooled and coal must be found, gathered and a new fire ignited… takes a bit of time. It’s never the same.

My own father passed several years ago. While I do miss him… he visits me often in my dreams. He is such a part of me. But again. It was natural. I knew I would prepare for it all of my life. I would never be ready. But I knew I would see it. I can accept it and I suppose that I have. But I also had been blessed with his “replacement” of sorts- in a way a man looks after a woman. My one that only God knew could weather the loss with me. The only one who could feel it in my way. The one who needed ME to weather it with him. My Linda. Our Toddy. And we did. And life did go on. And it was natural.

But now. NOW. What? I lie here and watch the cursor blink. Waiting for my words. I stare back at it. Also waiting for my words. There just aren’t any. It’s unnatural. How can I argue with God about His timing? I do. “I’m sorry God… it wasn’t time”. “This is wrong God. Its not time!”. I don’t know what to think. My face is hot. Unnaturally hot. From the inside. “But…I don’t want to, God. I don’t want to cooperate again. I don’t want this. Why can’t I understand God?” My mind keeps reeling. My mind has not accepted it. I continue to dream that he is here and only hiding out. That he is around here somewhere. He will show up unannounced. He has to. I know the world is turning and I am too. Life. Is going on. But I. I am running in place. In circles. I am not at the starting line. There isn’t one. There’s not even a race but I’m running. In place. Sometimes I show up at somebody else’s race… and maybe I get to participate… maybe carry a baton for them a while… but it’s never my race. There isn’t even…a race.

Tomorrow we prepare to celebrate the birth of our savior. The world has so far lost the meaning. I have sadly grown cynical. Not of Christ. Of the world. I’m in a new place. Unfamiliar. Unnatural. Nothing looks the same. Because nothing is. Ah. But there is Christ. The reason. When am I going to learn that nothing in life stays the same and there is only one constant in the world? Now would be a perfect time wouldn’t it? “Life ain’t fair and the world is mean”, thanks Sturgill.

This is the most joyous time of the year… they said. The merriest of moments… they say. But for so many… it is of the most difficult. The most challenging. The recognizable moments of those gone on. THE most obvious time of the year. Was it designed that way? To reduce the world to One being of Heaven and Earth at the same time magnifying and glorifying Him? To remove distractions and create them at the same time? To remind us of what it is to be humble and gracious? To remind us that each moment passing is important? Its hard to do in the hustle and bustle of the season. When many people are afforded time from work just to recognize the season yet all we do is go mad trying to recognize the season!? I find that everyday should be Christmas. I find that there is no one day to stop and think but rather everyday. I find that self reflection and self introspection is not and should not be reserved for one day a year but rather every single day. I find that we’re missing that these days. Maybe those who mastered that art have gotten to go on. Maybe they figured it out first. Maybe. Christmas and New Year’s festivities are joyful events that gives us the sense of a new slate. A way to wipe clean the old year, the pinnacle being the celebration of the One who wiped clean all of our slates and gave us anew. Fitting… isn’t it?

Happy birthday to our Lord. It is the only reason. I pray He finds you in your heart Christmas day if not every day. He is there. He must be. He is a part of me. He is part of us all. And if He should be… then those who are with Him are with us too. I believe. I believe. JHW+