A Road Less Travelled

 Last night we got back from a trip to Pennsylvania for my grandfather’s funeral. I decided there were enough different things I wanted to say about the trip and the funeral that I should break it up into several posts. This post sets the stage for the rest.

Early last week I was thinking about some friends I haven’t been in touch with for a while. They were a homeschool family with two boys–probably the first boys I ever actually made friends with. We’d read all the same books, which at the age of eight or so was the only thing that would have compelled me to attempt a conversation with boys my age. A few years later we left the state of Pennsylvania in something of a rush, as some of you already know. While several people slipped out of contact with us, their mother wrote my sister and me on a regular basis for several months, even occasionally sending us boxes of books. I saw them once more when we went back to Pennsylvania. We played Clue and, I’m sure, discussed our favorite books once more.

A year or two ago the son who was my age died in a car accident. I sent them a card and tried to remember to pray for them. Months later I wrote another note, but it didn’t get sent for several weeks, and due to one thing and another in my crazy life, I didn’t write again. So last week I was thinking I really should send them another note. Just let them know that I still pray for them when I think of them, because it doesn’t really get better by the time everyone’s forgotten to send cards.

A couple of days later, a family in our church had a miscarriage. This sounds painfully obvious, but I really, really wanted their baby to live. It was okay, because God is in control, and He knows what He’s doing. But it still hurt.

The next day my grandfather died.

We’d been expecting it, though not necessarily this soon. I didn’t see Grandpa Rhodes that often, or really know him that well. When I first heard that he’d died my first reaction was something like, “Oh. Well, that’s it then. It’s over.” I felt like I should cry, but I didn’t at first. I just felt heavy and really tired of thinking about death. I didn’t want him to be dead. I didn’t want him to be sick. I really just wanted life to keep going, and the strawberry farm to still be there, and my grandparent’s house to be full of cousins who chased each other in endless circles around the main stairs.

So I put on my purple lipstick and went to listen to A Far Country. And then I cried. I cried for my grandpa, and for a little baby I wasn’t going to meet in May like I’d hoped I would, and other little babies I remembered wanting to meet, and for all the other people I wouldn’t see until heaven. I cried because even though I don’t want to go Home yet, and there’s so much here I want to do first, there are days when Home sounds really, really good.