This piece is dedicated not only to Don, the main character in what you’re about to experience, but also to my friend Jeremy (one of the most talented people I know) as he walks through the valley of death’s shadow with his four kids at his side.
I’m not sure how they did it, but every week Don and Belle, a dear elderly couple, would break into the worship center of Eleven22’s San Pablo campus before the serve staff officially opened the doors. This is not an easy thing to do, but there is no doubt that they both possessed the charm and fortitude to influence the ushers into making it happen. At some point during our weekly production run through I would see their silhouettes appear in the back of the room from my position behind the piano. They moved in tandem, slowly and steadily down the aisle until I could see their faces reflecting in the light from the platform. Having lived many years together, weathering many storms, they were close in every sense of the word. It was easily recognizable as I watched them. Don leaned forward over his walker as he gripped it’s handles, and Belle moved at his pace and stride with her arm tucked inside his. She took great delight in looking after Don, doting on him at every opportunity. He had been through multiple surgeries and had recovered with Belle at his side. She cared for his physical frame as if it were her own and did it with joy. After making their way to their favorite seats (they had pick of whichever they desired) they would make themselves comfortable, look up to piano, smile, and wave. I returned the favor as I played. They loved being in God’s house together. I loved that they were there.
A few weeks ago, I received the following text message from, John Lammie, one of our senior adult ministers:
“Michael, good morning. John Lammie here. Belle died yesterday. I just spoke briefly with sons Rick and John - they are not sure of arrangements yet. Moving their father into beach house assisted living today.
I will keep you posted, thank you so much.”
My mind immediately replayed the scene of the two of them walking down the aisle of the worship center together. I was shocked that Belle had beaten the love of her life to the pearly gates of heaven. It seemed highly unlikely due to the commitment and fervor she showed in caring for Don. But the Lord decided to take her home which changed things for Don.
A few days later, John made arrangements for he and I to spend some time with Don in preparation for Belle’s memorial service. As John alluded to in his text, Don was in the process of moving into a small, quaint assisted living facility called “Beach House” after his bride’s passing. He and his family had decided it was best to sell the home that he and Belle shared as it would be difficult for him to live the day to day without her doting. I found myself asking questions about how Don was handling all the change. On the day of our time together I met John at Beach House. We took the elevator up to the third floor and made a few hair pin turns down the hotel-like hallways before we ended up at his front door. Don greeted us with his usual, jovial smile. “Please come in!” Lammie and I did as we were told. As Don moved through the kitchenette of his small one-bedroom apartment with his walker toward the mechanical Lazy-boy chair in the corner he pointed out the features of his new digs. “Here’s the kitchen! Here’s the living room!” He pointed to a framed painting on the wall of a classic Florida seaside scene. “Nice view, huh?” We laughed together. Don eased his way down into his Lazy-boy and pushed his walker to the side as John and I found places to sit around him. The sunlight from the window just off the right side of his chair beamed down on him as he talked about how hard it was to fit all the stuff from their house into his new space. That same sunlight illuminated the handwritten note that he had scotch-taped to the window from his bride.
“I love you with ALL my heart Donald!
-xo Belle
5/12/18”
John, who had recently entered the senior adult ministry after retiring from decades of service as a military family physician, oozed with bedside manner as he asked Don questions. We listened as Don talked about whatever answers the questions brought up in his mind. His eyes swelled with pride as he told us the story of how he and Belle had first met. “We were cruisers,” he said. “Sometimes we would get off one boat only to get right on another!” We giggled along with him as he described their life together.
As I sat and listened, I was gripped by all he was experiencing. I tried to put myself in his shoes, guessing what he might be thinking and how he might be feeling to better empathize. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t imagine saying goodbye to the love of my life, and as a result, the home we shared in one fell swoop. I was amazed at his level of acceptance juxtaposed with his ability to confront the grief. In the tenderness of his voice I heard an openness to the possibility of joy. His heart was broken, but open. There was nothing trite or jejune about it. It’s as if the path of Don’s life had brought him to a high and tenuous mountain pass where each step bore difficulty. It was the same path that he had been on, but now the elevation had changed, and he was searching for the joy in the journey. He was well ahead of me on that journey, of navigating the ups and downs of God’s abundant life. I did well to pay attention.
A few days before I had found myself alone in my living room with my Bible open to Matthew 9 reading a familiar passage of scripture. Jesus was being questioned by his cousin John’s followers about he and his disciple’s propensity toward celebration.
“Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.” (Matthew 9: 15-17 ESV)
As John and I sat across from Don in his small apartment, Matthew’s words rattled around in my head. A new view of Jesus’ teaching came into focus as the Spirit quickened the Living Word of God to my heart. Jesus, the Son of David who is the personification of true Wisdom, was restating an eternal truth that his earthly forefather, Solomon another Son of David, had written nearly a millennium before.
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.” (Ecc. 3:1-8 ESV)
I saw it in Don as he sat drenched in sunlight in his chair under Belle’s note. Again, he wasn’t naive of the grief. He felt it. It confounded him like an impassible intersection on the road of his life. She was gone, and he was sitting with a small percentage of his earthly acquisitions in a tiny apartment. People who didn’t look anything like he or Belle, nor shared their namesake would take over his daily care. Yet, he recounted beautiful memories even in the full recognition of the season in which he found himself. Grief and joy walking hand in hand in the moment on that incredibly narrow path with God. After our conversation came to a close Don led us to his new front door and offered us a kind farewell. John and I left him alone in his apartment with an outline of how we would best remember Belle at her memorial. “I’ll see you on Saturday morning,” he said as we made our way back to the elevator.
When Saturday morning came, I pulled up to the funeral home down the road from Eleven22 with my Bible and my guitar. As I walked into the room where Belle’s memorial was to be held, I was greeted by Don with his walker. He was in his Sunday best and surrounded by his family. When he smiled at me I recalled the way he and Belle looked up from their favorite seats in the worship center. I reached over his walker and hugged his neck. I turned to take in my surroundings realizing that the room was packed to the gills. It was a standing room only event as dear friends and family poured in to remember Don’s beautiful bride. She lay peacefully and beautifully dressed in the open casket at the front of the room. There was a general excitement in the air. Lively conversation, which I could only imagine was a direct overflow of the way Don and Belle chose to live their lives together, hung in the atmosphere. In fact, when John approached the podium to begin the service with the reading of Scripture, he had a difficult time quieting everybody down. When things had finally settled, and John had read through the chosen passages I grabbed my guitar and invited those who could stand and join me in singing “How Great Thou Art.” Don stayed seated at the table directly in front of me with his children’s hands on his broad shoulders. As the room started to sing, he dropped his head and began to shake up and down as he released his sorrow. His sons drew closer to him as we worked our way through the verses of the old hymn. I could see Don reliving the moments that he and Belle shared worshipping side by side with their church family. They loved music. It’s why they snuck in before the doors were open to hear the band play. His eyes began to overflow with genuine tears.
“That’s it, Don,” I thought to myself. “Pay attention to the season. Put the right patch on the hole in your heart. Put this new wine in a new wine skin. Stay in step with God as he walks you through the valley of death’s shadow. That way the tear won’t be made worse by trying to stifle your sorrow. Grow into this new reality with God as he leads you by His Spirit. He’s present with you in your grief just as He is present with you in your joy. He is The Great I Am, ever present with you. Always.” Don was doing it. He was walking through the valley of the shadow of death with the Good Shepherd. Jesus’ rod and staff were there in his distress, dependable and secure. Without a doubt there would green pastures and still waters ahead.
After the song came to a close Don’s son, Rick, gave a beautiful eulogy of his mother. As he described the way his parents met and fell in love the room responded with both laughter and tears appropriate to each moment. When he moved into saying his final goodbyes the room fell into a quiet reverence. I grabbed my Bible and worked my way up to the podium and opened to Matthew 9 and Ecclesiastes 3. As I encouraged those gathered to recognized God’s presence with them in every season with the truth of God’s Word much like I am in this piece, something dawned on me. It was Belle. Her body lie still in the beautifully adorned casket just to my left as I spoke. But she was not there. I realized that Don’s beloved bride had been ushered into a new season herself. Belle was with the Bridegroom. She had been filled with new wine. Where the Bridegroom is there is no fasting or weeping, it’s just not the right thing to do. No, to honor this season Belle would feast at the King’s table and dance the dance of victory. As we remembered her earthly life in the crowded room of the neighborhood funeral home on this side, she was experiencing a new and truer life at the great banqueting table from the other.
When my time of sharing was done, we all sang the song “Living Hope” together. The last verse seemed to come alive in our midst:
Then came the morning that sealed the promise
Your buried body began to breathe
Out of the silence the Roaring Lion
Declared the grave has no claim on me
Jesus, Yours is the victory!
John gave a hope filled benediction to close our time together. After his final “amen” the room returned to the air of excitement it had before the service began. Don rose from his chair, grabbed his walker, and made his way up to Belle’s body. I watched from the side as he leaned over and placed his final kiss on her forehead. I had no category for the amount of courage that act took. But I knew, without a doubt, it was the right thing to do. My heart surged with pride as Don moved through the necessity of presentness with what he was being confronted with. I knew he wasn’t alone.
As I sit and write this last paragraph I am 2 weeks removed from my experience with Don at Belle’s memorial, but only minutes from sitting with him again in his Beach House apartment. I stopped in after lunch today to check up on him. He greeted me at his door with the same grace as when John and I saw him together to plan the service. He was in his chair in the corner of the room under her note. We talked about the difficulty of the transition, about passing through the valley of Belle’s loss. It’s not over. And he assured me there’s nothing rosy about saying goodbye to all your stuff in an estate sale. But when I held his hand and prayed with him before leaving, I could hear him push through to embracing God’s presence with him in his soft affirmation of my words. Even as I write I am continuing to pray that the heavens would be opened at the Beach House and that Don’s chair by the window would become a Bethel place. A place where the I Am-ness of God would find him while on this leg of his journey. I shared with him that I’m praying the same thing for myself on mine. For all of us, at any and every point at which we find ourselves, there is a field to sell and greater treasure in that field to be discovered. The Great I Am is never not there, and wherever The Great I Am is, all of Him is there.
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