I've been pondering loss an unusual amount lately.
It's a normal part of life. We lose socks every time we do the wash. We lose games or conveniently lose homework every now and then. But loss isn't just the small things.
Recently, I found out that a very dear friend has cancer. He's my age, so that's part of the struggle, but it has plummeted my brain into deep thinking on loss in a way that I haven't thought in a long, long time.
Five years ago I felt loss in a way I've never felt it before and I'm not sure if I've ever really come to terms with it.
Let me rewind a bit. I say goodbye a lot. A lot a lot. Every other week I seem to be saying "see you later" to someone close to my heart. People come and go in an international setting, and that is expected and normal. It's hard, but I can handle it.
But death is a whole different level of goodbyes.
And as a TCK, goodbyes are usually see you laters. Or at least they could be. You might run into each other 10 years later at a baseball game or in a random airport in some strange corner of the world. Or maybe you'll have a layover that is just long enough to see that one person you haven't seen since first grade. Or maybe you'll be vacationing in Australia and they will be there too for that random week. The Lord always seems to bring is back together.
But saying goodbye to a TCK...not just an earthly see you later, but an eternal goodbye...that reeks havoc on my heart in an intense way.
Five years ago this December, I said goodbye to one of the dearest friends the Lord has ever blessed me with. We were friends back in Ethiopia days, and then as it often happens she moved and I moved and we drifted apart. For a while we would call each other once every summer when we back in the States, but then college happened and life happened and it was another TCK friendship that was still there but dormant. After almost a decade of not seeing each other, she ended up posted near my home in Washington state and we reconnected. We had movie marathon evenings, dinner dates in the middle, and so many hours of laughter. It was as if no time had passed at all, and it was so clearly providential that we were together again.
And then she died.
No one expected it, and in an instant she was gone. And my heart still longs for our conversations...for a few more minutes of infections laughter...for all of our "one day we will"s to come into fruition.
But they can't.
Because, in this life, death is final.
But in a TCK life, goodbyes aren't final.
And there in lies the conflict.
So, going back to where I started, a friend of mine has cancer. I'm praying every moment I think of it that the Lord would take the cancer away, that it would be the easily curable not so crazy kind, that the tests would come back that it was just a spot on the technology and not on him.
But His ways are better than our ways, and so we wait.
Anticipating see you laters and goodbyes.
Yet resting in the fact that earthly see you laters and goodbyes are but a temporary thing in light of eternity.
It's a normal part of life. We lose socks every time we do the wash. We lose games or conveniently lose homework every now and then. But loss isn't just the small things.
Recently, I found out that a very dear friend has cancer. He's my age, so that's part of the struggle, but it has plummeted my brain into deep thinking on loss in a way that I haven't thought in a long, long time.
Five years ago I felt loss in a way I've never felt it before and I'm not sure if I've ever really come to terms with it.
Let me rewind a bit. I say goodbye a lot. A lot a lot. Every other week I seem to be saying "see you later" to someone close to my heart. People come and go in an international setting, and that is expected and normal. It's hard, but I can handle it.
But death is a whole different level of goodbyes.
And as a TCK, goodbyes are usually see you laters. Or at least they could be. You might run into each other 10 years later at a baseball game or in a random airport in some strange corner of the world. Or maybe you'll have a layover that is just long enough to see that one person you haven't seen since first grade. Or maybe you'll be vacationing in Australia and they will be there too for that random week. The Lord always seems to bring is back together.
But saying goodbye to a TCK...not just an earthly see you later, but an eternal goodbye...that reeks havoc on my heart in an intense way.
Five years ago this December, I said goodbye to one of the dearest friends the Lord has ever blessed me with. We were friends back in Ethiopia days, and then as it often happens she moved and I moved and we drifted apart. For a while we would call each other once every summer when we back in the States, but then college happened and life happened and it was another TCK friendship that was still there but dormant. After almost a decade of not seeing each other, she ended up posted near my home in Washington state and we reconnected. We had movie marathon evenings, dinner dates in the middle, and so many hours of laughter. It was as if no time had passed at all, and it was so clearly providential that we were together again.
And then she died.
No one expected it, and in an instant she was gone. And my heart still longs for our conversations...for a few more minutes of infections laughter...for all of our "one day we will"s to come into fruition.
But they can't.
Because, in this life, death is final.
But in a TCK life, goodbyes aren't final.
And there in lies the conflict.
So, going back to where I started, a friend of mine has cancer. I'm praying every moment I think of it that the Lord would take the cancer away, that it would be the easily curable not so crazy kind, that the tests would come back that it was just a spot on the technology and not on him.
But His ways are better than our ways, and so we wait.
Anticipating see you laters and goodbyes.
Yet resting in the fact that earthly see you laters and goodbyes are but a temporary thing in light of eternity.
