Ten years…

Ten years ago today, I stood beside a bed holding my father’s hand as he took his final breath. There was a heaviness, but also a peace in the room. Those last few days we had discussions about spirituality and life that we had never had in the 44 years we had shared in this world. It was a serene but sad ending to that chapter of my life, and little did I know in that moment the impact it would have.

My father’s death released something deep inside me, a captivity which had long held me. It would not release its grip quickly or easily, but that day something started changing inside. I still don’t fully comprehend it, but I stand here a decade later witnessing the changes which have resulted.

For years I had taught that resurrection followed death, but that belief had been a mostly academic exercise, something I had taught but not lived. My mother died fifteen years before my father, but I buried many of the emotions from that loss, grabbing even tighter to the need to perform to find value. As I had for most of my life, I hid in plain sight from everyone.

But this death, my father’s death, was something profoundly different. Maybe it was fifteen additional years of life. Maybe it was being free of having to try to earn my parents’ ever evasive emotional connection. Regardless of what it was, his death pointed me down a path that would bring more death, loss, and grief, some of my own doing and some not.

However, death is not the end of the story. While there were many days where I didn’t want to wake up the next morning, I leaned on the hope of resurrection. I went to therapy, engaged in spiritual direction, took retreats, read, learned, meditated, and more. I made many mistakes along the way, but kept going, even when it felt like I wasn’t moving at all.

Part of the last ten years has been traveling through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. But as the psalmist says, YHWH was with me, present in even the darkest of moments, even when I felt forsaken. There were days I cried out the words of Psalm 22, the ones Jesus spoke from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night but find no rest.”

I have experienced death and resurrection many times over this last decade, and each new birth has brought new understanding, new self-awareness, and new life. I have continued to discover who I am, what my purpose is, and how to engage in more authentic relationships.

Surely, more loss and grief await me, but I am learning to embrace life fully. Death has taught me how important it is to live. Loss has taught me to fear less and appreciate what I have. Grief has taught me to love deeply and pursue the abundant life Jesus describes.

Vulnerability used to terrify me and I would work so hard to avoid it. I feared if people really knew me, they would reject me. What I have learned is that when I am my authentic self, love will naturally flow my way, in ways I never imagined. I have been set free to love myself and the world with reckless abandon.

Ten years ago today, I watched the man who raised me take his last breath. A decade later I can see how his death cracked open my heart and removed unseen barriers, setting me on a journey of healing, discovery, and growth which is far from over.