The Day the World Stopped

My Daddy and I two weeks before He saw Jesus

To be honest, I don't really remember the day I found out my beloved grandmother was dying. Brutal honesty? I had wondered when it would happen for quite some time. Gruesome, I know, but she was pushing 97...and she was oh-so-ready to leave this earth. July 2009. Pancreatic cancer, the devil of all cancers, claimed her earthly body less than a week after she was diagnosed.

Two months later, my dad was diagnosed with the same devil. I do remember that day; I remember like it was yesterday. I remember the terrifying anticipation, knowing that tests were being performed and suspicions had been raised. I remember the tears I wept, against my stubborn will to maintain all composure, as I sat in class waiting for my mom to call with the results. I remember the annoying sympathy, the he'll-be-okay looks and the i-have-no-idea-what-to-do-with-you hugs. All the while, I just wanted to scream, "You have no stinkin' idea the kind of abyss my world is slipping into!"

Then the call came. It was weird. As the words, words I already knew and had rehearsed in my head, came out of my Mom's mouth, an eerie peace sank over me. Resolution gained control over out-of-control emotions. I had to go home, to face the beast head-on. I had to save my Dad, because I knew he was dying.

Ten incredibly short--and yet, brutally long--months later, my Daddy went to be with Jesus. My world stopped. I didn't know how to live, how to have passion and dreams again. I just got out of bed and did meaningless things, watched meaningless movies, said meaningless words. All the while, I wondered why the rest of the world kept going. Didn't everyone else see what had just happened?!? The greatest man I ever knew had left the world, and people were still laughing, still going to the grocery, still saying and doing the wrong things while neglecting the right things.

Sometimes I forget that feeling. Sometimes I forget what it is like to have your world crash while everyone else seems to be living on a bed of roses {even if they are fake}. Today I remembered. Today I remembered, because today I read THIS. A sweet little girl, living on the other side of the country, found out that her respite from a silent evil that had taken root in her head was over. The devil has returned, and although she must cling to hope because sometimes hope is all one has, the odds are not in her favor. Today I remember that feeling...while she and her family are FEELING that feeling. I am sad for them.

While I am sad, I also can't help but wonder if we have it all wrong. You know, we dread death, avoid it like the plague...sometimes avoiding the plague itself with research and drugs and body-disfiguring surgeries. I just wonder, if we saw eternity through God's eyes, would we be working so hard? Probably not, but right now we don't have God's eyes. So tonight I am pleading for God to give this little girl His eyes, or to heal her physical body so that her Mommy and Daddy can blossom under her love a little bit longer...or to do both. All the while, I long to remember that there is always someone around me whose heart has been smashed...could I be the one to take him or her to the Comforter, the Heart-Healer?