Lent

I think for me Lent will always be a special time of reflection. It’s the season I lost my Linda, my kids lost their Mama, and I prayed fervently that Linda would go to her rest so Easter would indeed be a time of renewal for me and for the kids. In past years it’s been the time for other family trauma, beginning with Ash Wednesday and culminating with Good Friday. Sometimes when I see the flags change in church I want to run. How much more can God send in this season to make me prove my faith and strength?

That’s when I take my moment to realize I have not experienced the half of what Jesus faced in those days and nights on the desert. It’s when I realize, painfully, that I had no idea what Linda was facing when she said to me that she was not ready to die, and clung to me as we cried. It’s when I realize that I am so incredibly blessed to be here, to be preparing for that renewal on Easter morning, the renewal that makes me want to haul my butt up Mt. Rubidioux for the sunrise service. Seeing that sunrise for me is seeing it for Linda, for my dad, for so many who are celebrating Easter in the grace of God. (If you don’t share that belief, I am not open to debate, especially this time of year).

I know I am not important enough in the scheme of things to be personally tested. I know my faith is strong, even when wavering. And when it does waiver, I can’t tell you how much it meant to me in this season two years ago to hear Linda say she wanted to go home. I knew what home she meant. She was settled. She was sure. She saw Mari, and her mom, and she knew they were waiting for her. They had visited and told her to come. I don’t need to be preached to (sorry Jane, no disrespect intended) to know that Linda saw the face of Heaven, and wanted to be there. She wanted to stay with us, to see Chloe graduate, to hold the kids for the rest of their lives. She loved me with her whole heart, and I her. But she saw where she was going as she transitioned there, and she saw peace. She rested easier, even though her lungs were not drawing any air. She could think and talk about it, even though her heart was barely functioning. She was talking to Mary as if she knew her. I believe she did- I mean that.

Lent is always going to be my hardest season. I still cry at some Christmas songs. Linda’s birthday is in a week, and in Lent. That is so not fair. Linda’s last Sunday in our beloved church was her birthday, when she managed to get there and get up that aisle for her birthday blessing, with the kids holding her up. I knew when Jane said the blessing and asked God for those present to be held in His arms for another year that Linda’s last year was right then. But she soaked up the love in our big old church. She loved her babies helping her get up that aisle and singing in the youth band. She loved the reflection of Lent and what it meant.

As Linda was dying that last week, I knew Easter was coming. I prayed fervently that Linda would not leave us on the anniversary of Kerry’s adoption. That was a special day and needed to stay happy. I thought maybe April Fool’s Day would be her day- it seemed appropriate for my Peter Pan. But Easter- that was off limits. We had always made Easter special. Linda loved the egg hunts at least as much as the kids. She sang out in church to “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” She loved the group sing along to the Hallelujah Chorus. It was Charity’s first Easter with us. It was the day of the resurrection, and it mattered to both of us. It really mattered. On that Good Friday, when Casper said quietly that I could shut off the oxygen concentrator because it was no longer making a difference, and Linda didn’t need it anymore, I came to a very quiet epiphany. Linda was in her own Easter. I thought I was ready. I really did. I had held her in the hospital bed. We had cried together. We said goodbye. We knew there would be a reunion. Neither one of us had any doubts. But even now I am not ready, and it is nearly two years later. Even now I cry. But my Linda was ready. She had already seen Mary, Mari had come to her to say it was going to be time, and she was at peace. I look at the picture from our wedding in our dining room, where she is looking at me with a look in her eye of pure love, and I reflect that then we already knew she was dying, and I know she had made her peace as best she could. And then I know I have come to a place in the Lenten season that only those who have faced such a tremendous loss can reach. It’s all theory until you have to allow God the grace to take your beloved and trust that Heaven is waiting. My Linda had that trust, and trusted me to guide her there in love and grace. Now my job is to maintain that trust and grace when I face the losses year after year of Linda’s presence in our lives. And to trust she left us as a family to carry on without her as she would have wanted.

Time to get ready for Easter.