Death Is Not The End

As most of you may know Friday, November 19 marked the 1 year anniversary of my brother John passing away. This whole week and month have been unbelievably difficult for me and the rest of my family. Difficult but not impossible (even if it did feel like it at times).

I will warn you this could be a rather long blog post so hang in there!

November 1 sucked. As did each following day in the month. It wasn't all bad but each day was one day closer to a huge and horrible milestone. Then Saturday November 13th hit. This is the day I lost internet in my apartment because we had been using an unsecured network that we figured out was our neighbor's. She had put a password on her internet and rightly so in order that people like me don't use it! haha. So from Saturday to Wednesday night I did not have internet. At first I was angry. Then I realized that it was no accident that this happened to be the week when the internet went out. So I decided to take full advantage of that time. I started spending lots of silent time in my room with Jesus. Weird sounding I know but it was much needed. I also started reading this book on grief my parents had sent me sometime in the last year but had never bothered to pick it up. It's called A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser. O my gosh.

I should probably preface all of this with the fact that I have not read many books on grief, which I should have been doing all along. So I started reading this one and couldn't put it down. I was crying my face off. It's not that it is even the best book on grief ever but I just really connected with it. Connected with a lot of normal things associated to grief that I have been either unaware of or just plain refusing to listen to. I started realizing how much grieving was left to do in my life and how as much as my brother dying sucks, it is not the end of life and ultimately that is my decision and no one else's. Lot's of God's truths were echoed to me within the book. And my extreme need to find hope in the world became like a flashing neon sign in my face. For the first time in the past year, I felt like I was engaged in life. I feel like this whole past year I have walked around with my hands in the air shouting "Woe is me!!" everywhere I go. No more.

I also had a good conversation with a friend who has experienced loss of a sibling as well. That was when I saw my first legitimate glimpse of real hope with my own eyes. It was like the seeds of truth and hope and love that others have been tirelessly planting in my life started budding. While they are not full grown flowers, they are there and I am going to tend to these new shoots with everything I have.

In that book was also a chapter titled "Why NOT me?" I was very confused by this title at first and a little confused when I began reading it but as I kept turning the pages I began to realize just how relavent that phrase is.

"No one is safe, because the universe is hardly a safe place.

It is often mean, unpredictable, and unjust.....

Loss deprives us of control. Cancer ravages, violence erupts,

divorce devastates, unemployment frustrates, and death strikes-

often with little warning."

That passage along with the rest of the chapter really started giving me a new perspective. And by new perspective I think I just lost a lot of my childhood innocence as stupid as that sounds. I would have thought that would have been gone a long time ago. I have finally come to understand that death in my life is far from over. But death doesn't always have to be the end. And I don't have to be afraid of the next person dying or getting sick or whatever life may bring. It is going to happen whether I worry about it or not. There is no secret recipe for avoiding it.

Friday my good friend Leslie Sloan was telling about how she was reading "The Essential Henri Nouwen" and there was one section talking about how all good things in life come from the death of something else. So true. Even looking back on my life I can see an unending list of examples. Even within my own family. My mom died when I was five but I was given a new mother and with her, an entire new family of awesomeness! It doesn't make it ok with me that my brother is dead but I think I can look up at what may come of it. Already there has been so much. My family dynamic has changed so so much in the best way possible. We all enjoy each other so much more than we used to. And this probably would have come with time but I genuinely think it would not be to this degree that it is.

All of that being said. When I woke up yesterday, November 20th I felt the biggest feeling of accomplishment I've felt in a very long time. I was literally saying to myself "I did it. I did it." That's not to say this journey is far from over. It will be a life long journey. The sorrow will never go away. I will think about my brother and my sadness that he is gone every single day of my life. But I will also smile because of the Hope I have in Christ and knowing that life is life and somehow we all get to make the best of it.