Hope In The Valley

It was a Tuesday in which, after it was over, I felt certain three days had been packed into it. Involved in nearly every hour of that long day was an intense level of emotion, exertion of energy of all kinds and profound experiences that culminated with the death of my beloved brother in law. The after-effects of that eternal twenty-four hours are still settling in and marinating in my heart. Most of it is still to raw and sacred to share publicly. There is however, a sliver of the day I feel nudged to put down...perhaps simply to better cement the memory in my mind, or perhaps one who reads my words will take a message God knew they needed to hear. I write and what He does with my messy string of words is His business.

"Mitch is actively dying. If you want to see him, you should come soon"

This was once sentenced message that came to my phone during a whirlwind morning involving one woman who had slept in too long, an ice-driven two-hour delay, three school aged children who found it impossible to live in peace, twin boys being picked up by their loving grandma (one of whom screamed the entire way out of the house) and a new friend texting to say she was just moments away from coming over for our scheduled time together. All this, and I was on day three of six with my husband down in Florida for job-related training. 

About two hours later, I was pulling into the Turkey Hill convenience store to get cash from the ATM for the kind of trip down the Turnpike no one wants to take. I grabbed my cash and receipt out of the dispenser and with a million things on my mind, hopped in my Sienna to make the trek that would end in a hospital room suspended in sadness.

Among a boatload of vices, I am equipped with a faulty "details" mechanism which has always made itself especially evident in simple things, such as a perpetually southward-pointing gas gauge in any vehicle I call my own. So when I noticed, several miles down the Turnpike, "0 Miles To Empty" indicator on the panel above my rear view mirror, it was no surprise. I had been down that road empty before. I immediately reverted to my typical "I know I don't deserve your intervention" groveling to my Maker --the Sovereign God who intercedes on behalf of suffering souls facing death and destruction across the world, all day, every day. I flat out begged my car would find a gas station before it stalled on the side of the busy road with  no shoulders that I was on. In his patient kindness, and for TWENTY LONG MILES ON EMPTY, He kept the van running on fumes. 

After filling up (and vowing "never again", again), I found myself with a full tank, driving the long way to the hospital through Valley Forge. My senses where on heightened alert to all the possible double meanings of driving through a valley that once witnessed great hardship as I continued my journey to the place of goodbyes.



At the crest of the hill just past the valley pictured above, sat the majestic George Washington Memorial Chapel. There was a sign that invited visitors and I felt compelled to be pull over and be one. 




There was not one other person inside. It was just my small, needy form in a cavernous space which spoke to God's majesty and glory. I sat for a moment to pray. It is a strange sensation knowingly walking into a situation where a loved one is actively meandering between the veil that separates Earth from Heaven, even when they aren't moving at all. There is something sacred in the witnessing of the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning, which is what this life is. Death is the door to the rest of our lives...the best parts. And yet, because our imaginations are not big enough and our eyes are not adjusted to see beyond our physical reality, facing death has not only a terribly sad but also deeply mystical property to it. We are like children who desperately want to see out of a window that is too high for them to reach.




As I took one last look at the enormous structure reverently overlooking the valley, it occurred to me how over the centuries, each generation has in their own way and for their own reasons, has abandoned the old way for the new until we end up with very little reverence for the ways in which our ancestors worshiped. I know it is superficial, yet I felt sad for these great old cathedrals, resplendent with intricate symbolism and architecture that forces eyes to move upwards are monuments to the past. Should the organ have piped up while I was praying and belted out The Hallelujah Chorus, I am quite certain I would have experienced worship leagues beyond what I would in a room covered with drywall, sprinkled with padded pews and adorned with a drum set on it's stage. 



Pardon me. Rabbit Trails. Yet another vice shows it's ugly head in one post.

I kept driving. 
I kept praying.
I kept asking God to keep me aware
of His presence.
I had driven through Valley Forge
and now I was going to the bedside
of my beloved brother who was walking through
the Valley of Death.
And I wanted him, and all of us, to fear no evil.
For God is with us.

It was as I was on the second to last road leading me to the hospital when the date occurred to me: February 10, 2015. In a few short days from then (February 14, 2005) would be the tenth birthday of our first born daughter, Hope Annaliese. 
At the same moment I was mulling this, emotions swelling of remembering my daughter and anticipating her imminent introduction to who would instantly become her favorite uncle, the GPS told me to turn left onto N. Merion Avenue.  As I waited for a car ahead to pass before turning left, I looked to my right. And there was a sign:



God surely is with us.
He cares, He knows and sometimes, 
He uses humble little bakery signs to remind us of it.


Much later on after an emotional afternoon, I snuck out of the hospital to pay this bakery a visit. I asked for a dozen cookies and took them back where we sat around the bedside of our brother, uncle, husband and friend ...

...and we ate Hope's cookies as he ran to meet her.


God is love.
The end.

Comments

Unknown said…
Jeane',
Usually you make me laugh uproariously with sharing your busy, child rearing life. But this time I sit here weeping with the poignancy and truth of your post. My deepest sympathies to you and Curt and your family, both for now in the loss of your brother in law and also for the 10 years of missing Hope. Have no more words, just feeling..... dear one.
Anonymous said…
So sorry to hear of Mitch's passing, but so encouraged how I always seeing you grab the hand of God in the hard times. Love to you from across the street.
We love to watch you and Curt do life. You live it full of grace.
Cheryl
So sorry for your loss. And, how sweet the whisper from God of His love.
Laura said…
THank you for sharing something so personal and heartbreaking. I love how Jesus is so kind and he comes for us in the gentlest of ways, reminding us that He hasn't forgotten and that He is ever thinking of us. May God bless you and your family during this season.
debi said…
So very sorry. Glad you know you are under the everlasting arms of God.

Hugs!

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