Through These Glistening Tears

Not long into my morning 

I learned the news 

That my friend was gone. 

More than twenty-four hours later

My brain still can't assimilate it;

My heart still refuses to take it in.

She wasn't sick - that I knew of.

She was young - always young. 

Always so much younger than her decades

Would attest. 

We loved her. 

We didn't see her daily, 

But she was daily a part of us 

As close as the phone, 

And how I loved to call her,

Her concern and understanding 

And availability

Always as dependable 

As her unforgettably rich  

"Hello?"

Somehow as the morning ebbed 

We wrung out our tears

And marched on, 

One numb foot after the other.

I spent a little while with her family,

Sat in her house and soaked up 

Her absent presence - 

The whole thing made just as much sense 

As that contradictory line of print. 

How could she not be here, 

In this home that still breathed her personality in and out? 

I could see her in the faces of the ones

She'd emptied herself to fill up

- As she had for me and mine. 

I saw their tear-streaked,

Stricken cheeks, 

Felt their utter disbelief.

I touched her car outside,

Sat near the places inside 

Where she'd been 

When she was called away. 

I watched the tiniest ones 

Who were part of her, 

As one lay on the couch 

Confused

And the other crawled, 

Blissfully unaware, 

And laid his head down 

Peacefully

Only a few feet from where 

She had lain hers down

Hours before

As though, even then, 

He was soaking her up,

Just as she'd held him 

And breathed in his scent 

So many times

In the ten months she'd known him. 

My heart struggled, 

As did the hearts of her bereaved,

To make heads or tails of it

To believe what none of our hearts 

Wanted to accept: 

That she was gone. 

And after I'd imposed, perhaps, too long, 

I left them to their 

Sacred grief 

Left them to reorder their world

As I drove on, reordering my own. 

When your heart is on your sleeve 

Skinless, raw,

It feels everything it brushes up against. 

Your ears hear things they might have heard a day before, 

But they sound different. 

Such was the rest of my day. 

Nothing was normal, 

Nothing ordinary. 

I stopped at the store 

And ran from one end to another 

To gather my few things,

Headed to the front

And got a call from home

That sent me scurrying to the back again

And there, wanting to soothe the ache in me

With something easy, I looked for favorite chips

And couldn't find them.

And somehow, right there,

I had an unlikely conversation with a caring woman

Just about her age

Someone I'm pretty sure God put there 

To open up to me in ways you 

Just don't 

When you're standing in the snack aisle. 

Her number is in my phone now.

I didn't tell her about my day

Or my loss

But still she was there 

An unmistakable friend -

The kind you don't meet every day. 

And I walked away wondering if that 

Was why I couldn't find the bag of Fritos. 

I hurried to the check-out 

And ran my few items through

Partway

Until

Frustrated 

I realized my card was nowhere to be found,

And the cashier froze my sale 

As I went and combed the store 

Corner to corner 

To over in this corner

Head down

Looking

Praying:

Lord, I know that sometimes small things seem big

And things that are really big seem small

But this seems big to me

And I know You have better things to do 

But will you please help me find it? 

And when I'd looked in every aisle I could remember traipsing

Kicking myself

For my carelessness

I knew that there was only one thing left to do: 

Go to Customer Service - 

And if they didn't have it

That was it. 

I envisioned the wearisome drill - 

Having them put the groceries back

Calling the bank

Stopping the card

Ordering a new one. 

At Customer Service

An associate was standing outside the alcove

And I asked her

Did anyone turn in a bank card? 

And she looked at me and said

Were you over at that check-out? - 

Motioning over to where my groceries still sat - 

And I said 

Yes. 

You put your card in the payment machine. 

We tried to catch you. 

What??

I'd run away, my card right there 

Where it was supposed to be.

And I remembered then

Slipping it in. 

I laughed and told her 

That I didn't even mind feeling dumb

Because I was so relieved to have found it

But even as I went back and finished my transaction

I knew 

It wasn't really stupidity;

It was the kind of thing that happens 

When my brain gets overloaded

And mine had had a day. 

So I gave myself a break

Thankful the situation was resolved. 

As I headed to a different store

To find the chips I still thought I needed

My heart's microphone was still on loud - 

The mundane things I heard all vibrant with meaning. 

As I walked through the parking lot, 

I saw a young mama

Carrying her child to their car 

The little girl apparently let down because they'd

Put the cart back

And the mama told her, patiently, 

Honey, we can't keep it. 

We only borrow the cart

And then we have to put it back. 

That's just how it works. 

And my soul heard it clearly: 

That's just how it works. 

You only got to borrow her. 

We only have the people we love 

In our lives for as long as the Lord allows. 

You were never going to get to keep her. 

And as I came back out 

A recently-dropped pacifier lay on the asphalt.

I motioned to the car beside it,

But the driver had seen it too

And it wasn't her family's. 

Somewhere a baby is sad, I thought,

But that's just how it works. 

Pacifiers, like so many things,

Are temporarily in our lives,

And some little child may be adjusting

To life without something he thought he needed to keep

Forever

Just like we are

Today. 

It was one thing after another - 

Reminder after reminder to my grieving heart 

That God knew 

That He knew and understood

Better than I did 

And was hovering close to help me see. 

Off and on throughout the day

I thought of our pastor's sermon

The day before:

How he had impressed upon us that 

We need to make more of Christ

And a lot less of ourselves 

And, with my self filled up with hurt, 

I wondered 

How? 

What do I do with this sorrow?
How do I use it to make much of Christ? 

And as sure as He is God and I am not

He made the answer clear: 

By pouring myself out as she did.

She touched so many lives 

Not just touched 

But undergirded - 

Invested herself

Long term

In her family

In others that she made family.

She simply loved. 

She didn't try to impress anyone. 

She just gave 

As naturally as she breathed

Without apparent thought of whether 

She could keep it up.  

She prayed and cared 

And lived out her faith

In the most real and humble 

And unadvertised

And sincere ways. 

It's who she was,

And I am made better for knowing her. 

Once home I sat at the piano

Where I'd sat so many times

With her

Where she'd gently and patiently taught us.

I opened my hymnal 

And played a few hymns. 

I don't play well; 

I started learning as an adult 

And seldom spent enough time practicing,

But she never gave up on me. 

She cared about so much more than my technique

My amateur ear

Or my often-uncooperative fingers. 

Oh, she could hear each errant note I played 

- And she let me know. 

But as she sat beside this student 

Whom many teachers probably would have found not worth their time

She always found encouraging things to say. 

She kept from cringing at my mistakes

And found successes shining out in my stumbling efforts. 

When I first came to her, I loved the hymns - 

They had taken root in me in childhood - 

And in her I found a kindred spirit 

Who helped me learn to play them better. 

Flipping through the pages,then, 

I found this, 

One of many favorites, 

Written by Frances Havergal around 1874, 

And there in its ancient verses

I found her. 

Take my hands and let them move

At the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet and let them be

Swift and beautiful for Thee, 

Swift and beautiful for Thee.

I remembered her hands, 

Moving effortlessly across the keys; 

How her tireless feet 

Driving her van 

Brought her all the way out here to our house 

To teach us. 

Take my voice and let me sing
Always, only for my King. 
Take my lips and let them be 
Filled with messages from Thee, 
Filled with messages from Thee. 

I could hear her joyful voice

Lilting spontaneously as she showed us

How to play a song, 

How her lips spilled out gentle encouragement

During the hardest of times. 

Take my silver and my gold,
Not a mite would I withhold. 
Take my intellect and use
Every pow'r as Thou shalt choose, 
Every pow'r as Thou shalt choose. 

How she gave of her money, 

Her prayers, her time, and her wisdom

To help my children in so many pursuits

Through the years; 

How she gave us lessons at low rates 

Out of passion and love

For music and for people. 

Take my will and make it Thine, 
It shall be no longer mine. 
Take my heart, it is Thine own, 
It shall be Thy royal throne. 
It shall be Thy royal throne. 

Her will? I only remember her wanting to serve. 

Her heart? His.  

Take my life and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee. 
Take my moments and my days, 
Let them flow in ceaseless praise,
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.

I'm not implying she was perfect, of course; 

She'd have never let me say that, anyway.

But looking back on the two decades we knew her, 

I can see that her life was one of consecration to Christ; 

And the minutes and hours He gave her,

Their number known by Him from the beginning, 

Truly flowed in steadfast praise. 

Up close, my family witnessed it.

Take my love, my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself and I will be
Ever, only, all for Thee,
Ever, only, all for Thee.

Now my friend,
Having given so much,
Is ever
Only
Wholly
With her Lord.

And my family
Her family
Those hers by blood
And those kindly taken in
As we were

Are left
To remember the things she did
Daily
Humbly
Quietly

And to carry on
In making much of Christ
And less of ourselves,
Deeply investing ourselves in others
As He has
So deeply invested
Himself in us.