What to do with endings

And he taught me how.  He taught me what to do with endings. I have been at a lot of endings and I will confess that I have never seen a physcian do what he did.  Ever.  No before and not since.  And the healing that came from that one act of kindness is eternal.  It healed them.  We so often think that our healings must come in certain packages, looking certain ways, but God sees it differently.  God is always making a new thing, especially out of endings.  She had exceeded all expectations and her name was Joy.  And she should not have been able to do what she did, but she did.  She lived in the midst of her ending and when her ending came, he stood by her bed and wished her peace.  She thanked him and smiled and died. She died within hours of her father.  I visited the family at the funeral home and it was all they could talk about...how he wished them peace in the midst of their pain and to them he gave them everything they needed to begin again despite the ending.  He was present.  And there is no greater gift we can give each other than our presence in their pain.  And Nouwen said it best but he did it best:

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with the reality of our powerlessness, that is one who cares.

And May always feels this way to me.  May always hurts me a bit.   I always want what is going on now to go on. I want boys to stay boys and  play and run and complain how they hate school even when they don't, and to hate girls, and forget to take showers and to eat only starches and drink only Mt Dew, and to wake up every morning at 6 am just to watch the top 10 plays on Sports Center and to run downstairs and tell their dads, and to still need mom to tuck them in and make their breakfast and pick up their towels and to give hugs.  But boys grow and as they grow they leave us.  Tomorrow Davis graduates from middle school and I do not where the time went.  It was just yesterday I was hiding the tears as I watched him walk into kindergarden by himself and it was just yesterday he finished the fifth grade and I did not hide the tears that day and  now tomorrow he finishes the eighth.  And I can not hide the tears.  And joy and saddnes are always like that.  Twin sisters always coming together.   And I want to treasure every moment because the present is all we have. 

So as I watch the ending tomorrow I will remember all those moments and I will look for new beginnings...for that is what you do...give thanks for the past, bless it and give it back to God and look for the new....which in the economy of God always is good...

And so tomorrow between the tears I will whisper thanks for all the endings and I will give thanks that there are always, always, always beginnings...

the last of Thursday packets
the last of bus rides
the last of tucking boys in
the last of boys sized clothes
the last of little chubby hands
the last of baby skin
the last of knowing everything about my child
the last of him telling everything
the last of me knowing everything

first day of high school
first day of summer break
first day of sleeping in
first light every day
first lightening bug
first watermelon
first sweet corn
first fresh tomato
first sunflower
first hummingbird

and always remembering what the prophet Isaiah said: 

“See, I am doing a new thing!


I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.

all is well and all matter of things will always be well and full of grace,

kathleen