Paying Tribute

Yesterday I sat in a funeral service. The clouds hung low and seemed to weep along with the family and friends. Death is unavoidable yet seldom welcomed. Saying good-bye to a loved one seems to tear a piece of you away and get tucked into the ground along with their earthly body. Finding a new normal can seem impossible in the midst of such a gaping loss. My heart aches for my uncle!

The service was to pay tribute to my aunt. A wife, mother and friend of many. In these later years of her life her independence was robbed as her body was wracked by a debilitating muscular disease. The quick wit was harder to decipher yet was still at the ready. I spent many, many hours in their home as a child and this week the memories came in waves. Hours spent in a hammock on their porch, traipsing around their yard and woods, ice-skating on their pond, giggles as we ran through the house and meals at their table. Our imaginations ran wild as they do when you are a carefree child.

While I want to pay tribute to her life and how she lived to serve others my mind has strayed more often to my uncle. Yesterday as I spoke briefly with him one could not deny his undying affection for his wife. His eyes hardly left her face as he spoke with me. His hand resting gently on the blanket covering the shell of her body. A man who desperately is missing his beloved. And these years have not been easy for him. Retiring from his pediatric practice to become her primary care giver. He cared for her tirelessly. I am sure there were times he wished things were different. Can you really blame him? I get grumpy some days taking care of my children and they are fairly independent. Yet he cared for her like he promised 49 years ago. In sickness and in health. We let these words roll off our tongues so carelessly in our youth because really we are invincible. We never dream that for years we may have to care for them as their body wastes away.

As someone thanked him towards the end of the service for his devotion to her and his testimony of loving her I felt the hot tears finally spill from my eyes. Except they were tears of anger. The emotion came from nowhere and I felt somewhat blindsided. I muttered to Mark, "If only my father would have had half that devotion for my mom!" It has been nearly 11 years now of processing the anger and disappointment. And while most of the time you just accept things yesterday I felt the pangs again. Some wounds seem to carry only scabs and seem to have a hard time turning into a scar. Scars don't hurt when they are poked and prodded but scabs can tear and bleed again. My heart felt some tugging and I think a small section oozed yesterday.

Today I heard that my father verbally admitted to my uncle sometime over the past few days that he in fact does have some regret for how his life has played out. To which my uncle quickly responded, "I don't!" So grateful to my uncle that he has given of himself and has been spent on behalf of others and he doesn't regret it!

So, what I have been mulling over today is this: I want to live my life so at the end I can confidently proclaim that I have no regrets! I want to live and be spent so that I am emptied out at the end of my life. Poured out for others. Because isn't that the beauty of this Christmas season? The ultimate gift given for us, poured out for us so that we may live and in turn be poured out as well? At this point in my life most of my being spent and poured out is for my husband and children. May I embrace it with a sense of gratitude and grace! I don't want to pine away and wish for what could have been so that I miss the beauty of right now! May God richly bless you all this Christmas! Embrace these moments so that we too can state, "I have no regrets!"