Dear Dan,
It doesn’t feel right that I’m packing for a trip without you.
But nothing has felt “right” for a while now huh? I’m still waiting to wake up.
How can I put into words what it feels like to be sad every moment but then at the same time have moments of revelation over and over again when I realize why I am so sad with a sharpness that goes right through me.
You were here. I know you were.
I am reading a classic book (on the side of my other reading) called “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” by Rabbi Kushner. Not “why” he points out, but “when” because it will happen. Some interesting perspectives on suffering. For example, he believes that it’s possible that we’re still on Friday afternoon in terms of God’s creation of the earth and that all of the tragedies are because God isn’t finished with putting order into chaos. Overall, though, I find his thoughts very depressing. He doesn’t believe God is in control of everything but that the natural laws God put into place govern things.
I don’t want to believe in a God that is so weak as to stand by and watch his own creation and be incapable of changing things. I would rather believe in an omnipotent God who actually took you away from me- for an actual reason that is on another plane of understanding- than believe in a God who is sad with me because he can’t do anything about tragedies.
At the same time, Dan, I am tired of my search for meaning in your death. There is no meaning- only loss.
Tonight there is a lunar eclipse. Our shadow falls over the full moon. It’s happening right now but I just can’t see it from my window.
I will try to have fun- with Audrey tomorrow Dan…on her second plane ride. I am sure her and I will both be thinking of the little game you played with her on her first plane ride to Chicago back in May. She recalls it and moves her fingers the way you moved yours all the time still. I will remember how I would grip your hand tightly during take-offs and you would roll your eyes at me. I will remember how you’d be asleep within a few minutes and I’d be left watching you, reading, looking out the window, excited, nervous. Remember when I woke you up to show you the unearthly icy mountains of Alaska on our way to Korea? Remember when we told the stewardess on the way back that it was our six month anniversary and she brought us a bottle of champagne? Remember when we sat in the plane on our way to Nashville for our first wedding anniversary and the old man behind us was whistling a hymn and we said it was too “Christianese” for us in the South. Remember how we’d watch different movies sometimes on the planes- you an action movie- and I a cheesy romantic comedy? Remember how we’d order Coke: “Coke please,” you’d say. Remember remember remember…all of that ingrained in me – and all of those remembers…that was with
you.
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