I’m sitting here watching the first flakes of snow fall,
blanketing the grunge below it in a renewing white. In the first hours of
snowfall I am reminded of how the earthly slate is gradually being wiped clean.
No matter what lies beneath, the snow finds a way to hide the contents
underneath. If only for a minute, the flakes are unstirred and able to recanvas
the world in its opaque snow white. A clean slate. A freshly applied masterpiece.
It’s breathtaking, really, at how quickly it all becomes transformed. The
ugliest of landscapes suddenly rivals the most spectacular all because of the pre-scripted
fall of a collection of ice crystals. Yes, soon it is marred again with the
traffic of to and fro but for a moment, while undisturbed, it’s has the ability
to be anything and everything you can imagine.
I see myself now, a year after my brother’s death, as the
snow drifts down on the stone pavers outside,
that the past 12 months for me have been exactly like snow. On January 11, I woke up to the ugliest of
landscapes, seemingly unrepairable, scarred by the evil of life, forever
transformed into “after Andy died” and from that singular moment of his body
being found, unbeknownst to me at the time the very first flake started to
fall.
It started with your praying us through it the moment you
got the news. It started with friends and family gathering in his home the morning
he died. It started the moment we began pulling the pieces together for his
funeral. It continued to fall as I
traversed back into every day life at lightning speed, too soon now in retrospect.
It started to accumulate on the sidewalks as I reached out to you in my
struggles in the months that would pass. And then as summer came, it built up along the
grassy spots as I flubbered through not understanding my confusion. Finally,
fall arrived and my crying out for restoration brought the most beautiful, peaceful,
landscape-changing blanketing of snow.
Looking back, I see it took months before I saw the start of
the snow canvas, enough flakes falling to begin to take its shape, but soon
enough there it was covering the ugly underneath and renewing my landscape. But
it, this restoration, started with a single snow flake. I know I am supposed to
say 2017 was my worst year, I know those around me would expect this given what
we experienced, but in all honesty, sometimes “the worst” finds a way of
morphing itself into something else. The moment itself was the worst, but the
aftermath, the snow fall, well, it softened my world into something
transforming. I’m simply better at being. A miraculous outcome of tragedy.
I’m able to function again now, albeit many months later, without
the horrific triggers of his death infringing on my day. They no longer creep
into my morning routine, my overheard conversations, or my leisurely moments.
But I am aware I am at risk as I sometimes see it on the periphery of my
existence. A few days before his death,
there was snow falling, this exact same week, and I felt a flinch at seeing the
same forecast lining up to repeat itself this week. And next week, I will hear the
ring of that phone call in my head while I am preparing for my day. But even in
this experience (as I’ve termed it, traumatic grief) I am wiser than I once
was. I have an ability to see a whole other side of the death experience that I
didn’t gain with the death of my grandparents, or close friend from malignancy,
or patients I work with daily. It’s as if a stone was pushed away revealing an
existence I wasn’t aware of before. Mastectomy
did this as well, with its own insights provided, letting me know that we never
really know it all. We think because we have watched something unfold around
us, or seen something portrayed in literature that we suddenly “get it” because
it was so comprehensively explained. It simply isn’t so. Until you walk in the
shoes yourself you simply are an informed observer, a far cry from an
experienced survivor. I get that now. Never again will I assume I know what you are
going through. And never again will I assume I’ve learned it all.
“We will thrive in the new scenery not despite the profound
loss, but because of the gain and clarity that can come in the experience, even
when it feels like tragedy.” These were my words on January 27th, a
few days after his death when I wasn’t sure what was up and what was down, but
I had enough togetherness to know and trust God’s promises. And I’ve kept those
words on my desk this whole year as a reminder of where I was going. Thrive.
Gain. Clarity. Three crystals of flaky white snow.
2
Corinthians 13:9 (ESV) - “For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong.
Your restoration is what we pray for.”
To access previous posts, click here.
