Happy 31st Jess,
I wasn’t going to write today. I decided eleven years on every birthday and death day is enough. But your birthday came, and I can’t help myself. It’s never enough.
On the surface, not much has changed really. You’re still missing all the experiences you might’ve had in this lifetime, especially the big ones, the sacred times in the life of a young woman, her wedding day, the birth of her children. You’re still not teaching and mentoring talented but under-resourced music students in an inner-city school like you wanted to, to help them find hope, their talent, and the will to win in life. You’re still not visiting me and mom, telling us all about what’s happening so we can be proud of you. You’re still so …. missing.
On the surface, nothing much has changed in the world either. People are still hurting each other. Rape, abuse, and murder, yes, the big nasty violent hurts. But all the little daily hurts too, the words, the lack of thoughtfulness for others, the pouncing on others and believing they are stupid. Oh, and the politics. Yes, people are still blowing up relationships, still mostly more committed to their position than to their friend, more caught up in worldly battling than heavenly purpose. Still no daily practice of Love and Forgiveness embedded deep in cultural norms. It’s just missing …. like you.
Nothing much seems to have changed with Dan either. Still no confession, no expression of regrets or remorse for your physical pain, your horror, your lost future. No signs of a human pulse.
Solomon said, “meaningless, meaningless, everything is utterly meaningless,” and “what is crooked cannot be straightened.” I get that. From a worldly, individualistic, humanistic perspective, it’s hard to argue with that.
But that’s all on the surface, from a worldly perspective. You blew up my worldly perspective with a crazy ‘noise from above’ when me and mom laid on your bed six months after you were murdered, right before our first Christmas Eve without you. Then again a week later, on New Years Eve, my favorite holiday with you, when we used to sit on the couch together and reflect on the past year and the coming one. Those seven loud ‘bangs in the night’, followed by the chimes going off inexplicably. And the two dozen other ‘signs’, which I now just called ‘answers’ to a middle of the night prayer when I was in my darkest despair. You went below the surface, blew up my worldly perspective, and replaced it with a divine one, which of course changed everything.
You went below the surface with Jules too, who told me just a couple weeks ago in church, almost twelve years after you were killed, that you met her in a dream, and because of the encounter she got out of a relationship she might not have survived. I’ve heard many stories like that about you from other people over the years.
I know for many, that’s just too crazy to believe. It would have been for me too, until I experienced it. Over and over. I was too stuck in my worldly perspective, my humanistic viewpoint. We live mostly on the surface of this stormy sea; we rarely go deep under the surface, where it’s always calm and the storm does not reach.
But you pulled me deeper, much deeper, below the storm, where all is still, all is peaceful. You helped me see you’re not missing at all really. Your body is dead and gone, yes, but you are not, you are alive and well in the place where Love and Forgiveness rule, and occasionally those of us still in a body are blessed with glimpses of that place, just enough to give us hope, and remind us what we’re here for, to experience all of it, and get better at presencing that Love and Forgiveness in the middle of this stormy surface we call ‘the world.’
Too much for the mind and heart bound here in this world, I know. Too unbelievable. Until it happens to you, and everything changes. Most of those who know and love me, and more of those who don’t, will be tuned out by this point in the post, chalking this up to the wishful thinking of a dad who needs to believe, who’s still stuck in the past. But the truth couldn’t be more opposite of that, I couldn’t be more free and empowered to embrace the future, whatever it is. And that tuning out blocks them from discovering the profound reality of who we are and what we’re called to do.
Which is: presence Love everywhere we are. Forgive everything and everyone, even those who kill our daughters. NOT pardon them, NOT excuse them, NOT release dangerous offenders so they can harm others. Confinement YES if you are dangerous, of course. JUST love them too, the lost need love the most. And especially loving and forgiving and being kind to our family and friends and even strangers on Facebook who see things differently than we do.
Happy birthday Sweetie. I should give you a present, its your birthday, but it’s you who has been giving me all the real gifts since we lost you. Thanks for the strength you give this weak person to share my truth, and no longer care about people’s judgments, but to care only that someone somewhere out there will hear it, right when they need to, and it will change everything for them like it did for me, and that’s all that really matters, helping each other. Thanks for the occasional reminders, to keep my mind and heart open, so I don’t miss those gifts. Especially the Love and Forgiveness.
Happy birthday my girl, always missing you here, but always knowing you’re there. Dad.
