A Year Ago...

Easter 1986

No one ever tells you what it feels like to loose a parent. No one says what loss and death bring into the life of those of us still living. We never stop to think that death touches us all because death is as Universal as birth. And no one ever tells you the grief that follows the end of a relationship. I am not thankful that my relationship with my father has ended, but I am thankful for the lesson that I have learned about this intimacy that exists with humanity and death, no matter how much we try to pretend it doesn't. I will never forget how important time is, how fleeting, how easily we become lax and forgetful. I will never again down play the importance of the gospel, because I have seen it rejected at the end of the path. I will also never forget that "as long as there is life, there is hope." I know my life has not been marked by separations, but this loss was/is still the most devastating to me personally. Loving someone who was unwilling to flee to Him and being helpless can really put life into prespective. I don't enjoy my education into the world of death and loss, but I am thankful to no longer be personally ignorant to the far reaching effects our choices of sin make not just on this life, but into the next as well. My father has taught me much at the close of this relationship which I know has and will have far reaching effects into the future of my life and the lives of those that I go through this life with. I pray that the Lord will continue to redeem this sorrow in my life and even when I cannot be thankful for the eternal loss of this love, I hope that it will bring glory to Him all the same.

D.M.B
1948-2010