3 Years

Hard to believe it was 3 short years ago that we raced home, facing the most shocking, heart-twisting, head-aching news ... Dad had suffered a massive heart attack and was gone. Life becomes something very different, very unfamiliar in a moment. Mom thinks it happened sometime after 4:30, but likely no later than 5, as it was dark when she found him. Now that we've moved the clocks back and the sun sets earlier, my mind is often taken back to that day 3 years ago, what it must have been like for him as Jesus called him home. How overwhelming. Beautiful, yet painful. Thankful, yet wistful. Many conflicting emotions that are hard to sort through.

While I know everyone's life here on earth is finite, and we each have an opportunity to choose where we spend the infite part of our life after our stay on earth, doesn't it seem so hard to imagine when all we know is life on earth? Doesn't it make you wonder what it will be like? I think those were some of the first thoughts I had once my brain allowed me to move past the fact that he truly wasn't here, that his soul was elsewhere. I fought it, asking God to perform a Lazarus-like miracle, perfectly content to explain that "God had raised Dad from the dead." You might chuckle, roll your eyes, but it is amazing the places your mind takes you as it tries to process the unthinkable. Boy did I want to rebel against the fact that he had died. Every fiber in my being wanted to reverse it, rewind, start over.

But time passes, you accept it, life goes on, your focus has to shift, you figure out how to adjust to this new, odd normal. Then you find yourself not wanting to forget, wanting to hear his voice, wondering what he would be like with his grandchildren, how he would feel about the undefeated Hawkeyes, what kind of jokes he would try to play on us, if he would still only order chicken strips at Carlos O'Kelly's, how he would feel about corn prices, whether he and mom would take vacations like they planned ... You find yourself wondering how 3 years can seem like too long because you want to keep his memory fresh, yet too short because some days you are still dizzy with the fact that he is truly not present.

Ethan often talks about how he has two grandmas and two grandpas. It is hard for me to know how to explain the second grandpa. I say he's the grandpa with Jesus in heaven. He seems to accept that. It is all very interesting. Wanting to remember, wanting him to have a relationship with him, but knowing he won't.

It's okay, but it's not.
It's sad, but there is hope.