When death, like a gypsy comes to steal what I love, I will still look to the heavens, I will still seek your face. But I fear You aren't listening because there are no words, just the stillness and the hunger for a faith that assures."
-"The Valley Song" Jars of Clay
Last October, I first heard JOC's "Valley Song" at Gary's funeral. Then, just six months later, when we lost Adelaide, these lyrics started to follow me. Now, with the recent loss of Trek, they strike yet more fiercely.
This feeling of death. Like a gypsy. How does death seem to steal so quickly? For all three losses, there was sickness and time for preparation. Yet in the end, the end came too soon.
For Adelaide especially, the irony overwhelmed me. We (I) had been preparing for her death for as long as I had known Adelaide (four years). When Casey first met Adelaide eight years ago, she was a recent widow and in her late 80's. Straight out of Ben Folds's "The Luckiest." It seemed that it could come any day, that each visit with her might be our last. When the phone rang, and it was one of Adelaide's care givers, or her neighbor Maggie, I always expected the bad news.
But time and again Adelaide proved us wrong. She was a survivor. She led a very healthy lifestyle. Aside from being housebound and needing to eat more, gain some weight. When I first met Adelaide, Casey had a habit of taking her Steak n' Shake milkshakes (dark chocolate) to try to fatten her up! Eventually, I think part of me refused to believe that she would ever die. Casey often joked that Adelaide would probably outlive him.
When something finally happens, something that you have spent years anticipating, but never experiencing, it catches you off guard. It feels wrong, too soon. Crazy to think, to say out loud.
Afterwards, the permanence of death is overwhelming. Something that cannot be reversed. Or undone. Sure, there are lots of actions and events that have consequences. It changes the future. But change is different than death. It's an alteration, or a shift, but it is not an end. Period.
The feeling perhaps more strange, is that each loss we have had has come at a greater cost to us. That is not to say that Trekker's life was more valuable than either Gary's or Adelaide's. Rather, the size of the emptiness in our day to day lives increased.
Gary and Adelaide were both very dear friends. Gary led Casey to Christ when he was 14 years old. Casey knew him for over half of Casey's life. Two and a half years ago, Gary was integral to the most important day of our lives; he married us. Adelaide was a friend to Casey when he was recovering from a broken heart. He says that there were years when she was the only friend who always had time for him, no matter when he came to visit. He would visit her for hours, sometimes falling asleep on her couch. As I grew to know and love Adelaide, I started visiting her more often during the summer months, when I was off school. I would sit on the end of her bed (when she no longer had the energy to visit in the front room) and discuss To Kill a Mockingbird and what high school and South City were like in her day. We were loved and mentored by each of them for years and years. We miss them dearly.
Trekker, though, Trek was our every day. I can't think of one routine that has not changed since Trekker's passing. Even as I sit here typing this post, I am keenly aware that Trekker is not nuzzling his nose under my elbow to vie for the attention I am giving the computer screen.
When we wake up in the morning and Casey flops to the end of the bed and leans down, Trekker is not waiting for his morning belly rub.
When I bend down to put my shoes on, I don't have to be wary of Trekker's head ready to collide with mine in his excitement at the association of shoes and a potential walk.
Every time I open the freezer, I wait for the sound of Trekker, coming to get his share of ice cubes. And when I drop food, my pup isn't there to be our living garbage disposal. (When we used to go to the houses of people who didn't own dogs, Casey would comment on the phenomenon of dropping crumbs, and the realization that no dog was waiting to lick it up).
And the thing that gets me every time, the walk up the steps to the front door. I have gotten into the habit of reminding myself continuously, starting with getting out of the car, and then with every step I climb, that Trekker is not going to be looking sideways through the front window (our One-Eyed Sea Monster) and that his tail is not going to be thumping against the coat rack that is just inside the door. Somehow, though, rational thought does not penetrate the heart that still waits to see her dog welcoming her home from another day at work. I guess the heart has a mind of her own.
Death is always unexpected and always unfair. I realize that now. Not because you don't have enough time to say goodbye or because s/he was too young. It doesn't matter. It can be a baby or an old lady. It can be from sickness, accident, or natural causes. None of it matters. Because the thing is, we weren't originally created to die. We were created to live forever. With God. Here on earth. So when my heart cries at the injustice of death, it's because my soul recognizes that death is an impostor. A gypsy.
Thank God for the One who conquered death, who will make all things right and new.
